


Why Would I Be With You?

by TheLizardWriter



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2018-12-05 19:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 51,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11584188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLizardWriter/pseuds/TheLizardWriter
Summary: Gold is the class clown who everyone loves. Silver is the delinquent who causes fights simply because he wants to. Crystal is the studious goody two-shoes who, unfortunately for her, is sort of friends with both of them. Preciousmetalshipping with the unfortunate setting of high school.





	1. Detention

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to just update the character tags on this as they appear in the story, because I don't want to tag them before they show up and have someone looking for them in the first chapter and getting upset. Expect more tags and ships to appear as the story progresses.

For weeks prior to the actual event, the student body had been playing up the pep-rally which was happening that afternoon. Everyone was acting as if it were going to be the defining moment of their high school career. Silver, the local delinquent, couldn’t care less about it. It wasn't due to the fact that he hated his school (Which he did), nor was due to the fact that he simply couldn’t be bothered to act like he cared (Which he couldn’t). It was simply the fact that he saw no meaning in cramming into the school gym with a bunch of sweaty, smelly strangers and screaming until he was hoarse for a cause which he felt nothing for.

Who cared how the basketball team performed? So what if they were having a better-than-average season? How was it going to help Silver in the long run? (Or even the short run for that matter)

He simply could not decipher why the rest of the school went batshit crazy for a chance to be forced into celebrating the marginally-better-than-usual ‘success’ of a team which normally sucked ass compared to the other schools in the county. He didn’t want to be squished in between the stench of other high school boys who simply did not know the meaning of the word ‘deodorant.’ He didn't want to be deafened by their insanely loud cheering (Seriously, why were they cheering?). He longed to be freed from the pain of the fact that none of them obeyed the simple rules of respecting the personal space of others.

So, in the end, it wasn’t really his _choice_ , per se, that he did what he did. After all, the only way he could get out of the pep rally was to score a detention that day, and the only way to ensure his detention would fall on that day would be to act so utterly ignorant of the rules that a teacher would feel _obligated_ to keep him out of the pep rally. After all, it was supposed to be the event that every single student in the school was looking forward to.

What he _wasn’t_ counting on, however, was the fact that the administration (and what idiots they were) determined that every staff member needed to be available at the pep rally, and not a single one could be spared to watch the two boys who were kept from attending. Instead, they left poor Silver crammed into an unused classroom with the class clown and the stuck up goody two-shoes.

“So they decided you had to sit this one out too, huh?” The class clown attempted to make small talk, but Silver wanted no part of it. If there were an actual teacher watching the two of them, the blabbering would be shut down immediately, but since it was another student, he simply huffed at the fact that someone was attempting to talk to him and blew his hair out of his face. “How long did it take you to grow it so long, your hair, I mean?” The boy continued to batter him with inane small-talk. Silver was convinced that he would lose brain cells if he even attempted to acknowledge the raven haired boy that kept staring at him. “How often do you have to dye it to keep it such a bright red?” Silver couldn’t manage to hold in a scoff at that one. As if someone like him would take the time out of his busy (read: miserable) life to do something as stupid as dye his hair.

He rolled his eyes and began to twiddle with his fingers to avoid running his hand through his hair. He knew if he allowed himself to subconsciously do as such it would only draw more attention to him from the obnoxiously nosy classmate of his, which was the last thing he wanted to do. So, instead of focusing on the fact that it was ever so gently tickling the back of his neck and desperately needed to be deftly swept to the side by a gentle and quick hand, Silver attempted to focus on just about anything else. Possibly the fact that the class clown always managed to get away with wearing a hat in school when Silver had gotten written up for something as stupid as wearing gloves to school in winter. Possibly the fact that for the life of him, despite the fact that he had been in the same class as the boy all year, he couldn’t remember the name of the class clown. However, his struggles to not draw any attention to himself were shattered as he finally broke down and swept the hair away from his neck, sighing in relief at the lack of tickling his hair was doing.

“Why do you like to keep it long?” The boy immediately asked, drawing out a larger sigh from Silver. He simply didn’t like it when others attempted to force him to talk to them. He preferred to be alone.There was only one person he allowed to talk to him, and that was his pseudo sister, Blue. “You’re a pretty quiet guy, aren’t you?” He continued, on and on. Silver was surprised that he hadn’t already knocked him silly due to the persistency of his questions. It was a fight which had gotten him thrown into detention, after all.

“Who gave you the black eye?” The boy gestured to Silver’s face, as if he needed a reminder of the fact that that was where his goddamn eye was. “Does it hurt? I’ve never had one before.”

Silver was just about ready to be done with the boy, but he didn’t want to get in yet another fight, so instead he settled for being vaguely (read: directly) threatening. “I can show you just how bad it hurts if you don’t shut the fuck up,” he hissed through gritted teeth at the other boy, making sure to not even grant him eye contact.

But, of course, it was Silver’s one response which drew the attention of the know-it-all goody two-shoes who volunteered to watch the two of them during the school event of the century. “Silver, you need to be civil. Gold…” Silver groaned as he was forced to remember the fact that the class clown had a name which could be considered as matching his. “...was only trying to do as such himself.”

“Really, Silv. I just wanted to talk a little,” the boy, _Gold_ , shot Silver a smile, which nearly caused the redhead to gag. He refused to accept the amber eyed boy as an acquaintance, let alone a friend.

“Don’t fu--” The redhead stopped mid-sentence to glance at the girl who was set to watch them, who had her finger in the air, poised to make a comment on his level of civility, “Don’t call me Silv.”

“Aw, I thought it was a cute nickname,” the girl cooed from the front of the room, earning a glare from both boys.

“C’mon Crys,” Gold groaned, “Stop it.” He then proceeded to turn to Silver, as if the two of them were friends (As if) and said, “I’ve known her since we were kids and she’s just _always_ trying to embarrass me.”

“I couldn’t care less,” Silver replied, brushing his hand through his hair absentmindedly once more. He couldn’t stand when he got tangles in his hair.

“Why are you so grumpy?” The girl at the front asked Silver, to which he simply scoffed again.

“Try living a day in my life,” he responded, instantly regretting it, as it sounded too edgy for his tastes. He didn’t want to seem as if he were being a delinquent for image purposes.

“Your life would probably be easier if you didn’t pick fights with everyone,” Crys replied, shaking her head gently as if she actually had a place in reprimanding him.

“Plus, if you didn’t get in fights, you wouldn’t have the black eye,” Gold chimed in, finishing his erroneous sentence off with a laugh. Little did he know, the black eye didn’t come from the fight.

“Sure,” Silver replied, refusing to take the time and effort that would be needed to explain even a fraction of what he meant to the two of them. Neither of them would understand the fact that he beat the other kid senseless simply to arrange this detention. The two of them simply stared at Silver for a couple of seconds before descending him into the hell of having to sit through their small-talk instead.

“Crys, why would you willingly sit out of the pep rally? It was supposed to be _awesome_!” Gold spoke in a whiny tone, reminding Silver of the fact that he was one of the many who actually looked forward to being packaged like a sardine in between sweaty teenagers.

“Unlike you buffoons, I don’t see the meaning in such frivolities,” she replied, nearly getting a rise out of Silver. After all, he loathed the notion of a pep rally as well. He didn’t want to seem as if he were simply trying to act different to gain attention though, so instead he kept his mouth shut and didn’t explain the fact that he got the detention on purpose.

“But it was going to be so much fun!” He responded, raising his voice to a level at which Silver wished to strangle him in order to quiet him down.

“Fun does not describe that situation,” she responded with, earning a curt nod from Silver, who felt obligated to at least express his agreeance in some form.

“You’re soooooo boring, Crys,” Gold responded with, his whiny voice casing Silver to barely be able to hold himself back from getting in another fight. Luckily for him, however, the girl simply went back to reading the book she brought with her, causing the talkative boy to have to quiet down.

There was actually silence for quite some time, in fact. Nearly for twenty minutes, after which school was almost over and the pep rally was officially finished. Silver was relieved that the tortuous hour of sitting in the room with the two most annoying people in the entire school was over, but he simply was not looking forward to going back home.

“Silver, wanna come out to eat with Crys and I? We’re going to Dairy Queen,” he spoke the name of the restaurant in a sing-song voice, as if that would entice Silver to join them.

Silver really didn’t want to join them. Honestly, he didn’t. Why would he want to join _them_? His stomach, however, had different plans. He wanted to actually eat a good dinner for once, so instead of flat out denying them like he would have liked to, he squinted his eyes at Gold and said, “I’ll only come if you pay for my meal.”


	2. 'Dinner'

It was official. Silver hated his stomach for leading him into the trap which was dinner with the know-it-all and the moron. They led him on, he thought. They lured him to the run down restaurant with promises of food. He wanted dinner, but instead he was met with a bowl of fried cheese bits and a milkshake. It wasn’t a dinner in the slightest. (But it was still food, his stomach told him).

He tried his best to ignore the two who were paying for the ‘meal’. Gold was eating like a slob (Did he _really_ have ice cream on his nose?) and Crystal was just blabbering away, gossiping about just about everyone else’s grades. Silver simply kept his head down, trying not to let either of them remember the fact that they dragged him along to dinner. Somehow, however, he got trapped between the window and Gold. He knew he shouldn’t have slid into the seat first, but he was simply eager to get his food.

It wasn’t that he was greedy. If he had the money, he would have fought tooth and nail in order to pay for his own meal, but he didn’t have money, so instead he fought to coerce others into assisting him in the acquisition of food. However, he was beginning to doubt the fact that one dinner was worth this mess when Gold turned to him and said, “So why are you always getting in fights anyways, Silv?”

“It’s none of your business,” he spat immediately in response, not even raising his eyes. “None of your damn business,” he repeated, mumbling his words the second time. He clenched the disposable cup in which his milkshake was contained so hard that it began to collapse upon itself from the pressure. Why did the moron need to be so damn nosy?

“Sheesh,” he said in response, rolling his eyes. “You need to learn a few social skills, Silv,” he placed his hand on Silver’s shoulder after he spoke, as if he were about to have a heart to heart conversation.

Silver, however, felt that it had different connotations. He slid back immediately, pushing Gold’s hand away violently, “Don’t _fucking_ touch me!” He yelled his words, pulling his feet up on the seat and pushing his back up against the window.

“Silver, calm down,” Crystal cooed softly from the other side of the table. “What’s wrong?”

Silver could feel his face burning with shame at the embarrassment of his outburst. Luckily there was hardly anyone else in the restaurant to stare at him as if he were mentally damaged. He longed to escape the group, but he couldn’t find his words and Gold was blocking his way. He didn’t want to hurt the moron, despite the fact that if he were asked, he would, in his mind honestly, state that he hated the boy.

He just didn’t want to get in a fight with the boy. It wasn’t that he thought he was a good person or anything. And it _definitely_ wasn’t that he thought he couldn’t take him. It was just that his body was already sore and the boy just didn’t look like the type that would be fun to beat senseless. He was too happy. Silver wasn’t in the business to steal happiness

Gold held his hands up, as if to show Siver that he wasn’t planning on grabbing his shoulder again any time soon. “Silver, what’s wrong?” He asked the same infuriating question which Crystal posed. Why the hell did something have to be ‘wrong’ with Silver? He was perfectly normal, dammit. He just had the occasional black eye or bruised rib, which were justified by others by the fact that he was always getting in fights.

“I just,” Silver paused for a second in the middle of his sentence, contemplating which lie to tell these two. It wasn’t too rare that he got questioned on his strange behavior. “My arm hurts from the damn fight, okay? Piss off.” He rolled his eyes and attempted to relax his tensed up body, resulting in him grabbing a hearty handful of the cheese curds and eating them quickly. It was hard to pace himself when he ate.

“Well, okay then,” Gold replied, still not moving his eyes away from the redhead who previously cowered in front of him. It just didn’t seem as if the Silver who was always beating other kids senseless should be so jumpy.

“You never told me why you ended up in detention, Gold,” Crystal spoke uneasily, as if her words were her only way to diffuse a time bomb.

“Ehh,” Gold rubbed the back of his head a little, averting his eyes. He even went so far as to throw his hat down on the table. “I haven’t passed a single test in my history class all year, and Mr. Surge is just such a strict teacher. All he ever talks about is the time he spent in the war and how am I even supposed to focus in that class when Blue is there?”

Silver began to grasp the table intensely at the mention of that name in that context. “You better not touch her,” he interjected. It was the first time he had willingly joined their conversation the entire meal, but he needed to make sure that the boy next to him didn’t lay a single finger on his one true friend.

“Ooo, do you like her?” Crystal leaned her head on her hands, staring intently at Silver as she asked the most absurd question that he had ever heard.

“That makes two of us,” Gold replied, waggling his eyebrows at the redhead, who couldn’t help but clench his fist. He really didn’t want to punch the boy (Or did he? Why wouldn’t he?), but that was Silver’s sister he was waggling his eyebrows about.

“She’s my damn sister,” Silver spat at him. He glared at Gold, setting his jaw to hiss through clenched teeth, “Lay one finger on her, and you will regret it.”

“Wait,” Gold said, holding his hands up in surrender (Like the coward he was). “If you’re her brother, why aren’t you ever at her house?”

“You’ve been in her _house_?” Silver replied, clenching his fists so tight that they were starting to hurt.

“Woah, calm down there, Silv,” Gold said, scooting back towards the edge of the seat, lengthening the space between him and the fiery redhead, “I’ve been there for _school_ purposes. With other students there.” Silver leaned back into his seat once more with a sigh, but Gold didn’t let his guard down right away. He’d heard about Silver’s fights, after all.

“Whatever,” Silver scoffed, blowing his bangs out of his face again and staring at the table intensely. It wasn’t like it mattered who Blue was with anyway, right? (But she was his _sister_.) She’d never get with someone as incredibly brain dead as the raven haired boy next to him, _right_? (Although she _did_ go through that phase where she tried to get _Green Oak,_ of all people to go out with her, after all, so who knew?)

Silver’s two ‘companions’ (Did he really have to call them that? Ugh) stared at him for a few seconds before Gold shrugged and said, “Crys, you gotta help me with my history. If my mom figures out I failed _another_ test, she’s going to take my car away! My car, Crys!”

Silver glared daggers at Gold, but Gold had already shifted his incredibly tiny attention span to the girl with the physically impossible ponytails. It wasn’t like he wanted Gold to focus on him though. That would be incredibly stupid. After all, _Gold_ was incredibly stupid. “I tried to help you the _last_ twenty times you begged me for help, but you never focus during study sessions,” her words sounded as if they _should_ have been laced with disdain and hatred, but instead they were fluffy and lighthearted. She even laughed afterwards. Girls baffled Silver.

“At least _I_ show up to all my classes,” Gold said, turning once more towards the grumpy redhead with the black eye. “You’re on the roster for Theatre but I’ve never once seen you there.” Silver’s eyes widened slightly as he realized someone actually noticed that he never went. No one had ever questioned him on that one before.

“I saw the words ‘Theatre and Musical Productions’ coupled with Mr. Eusine’s name and I swore to myself I’d never step foot in that classroom,” Silver explained. He didn’t see how anyone in their right minds could stand to be in the same room as that theatrical, crazy man. (Seriously, how did a teacher get away with wearing a _cape_ to school?)

“But it is so much fun,” Gold argued, looking at Silver as if he were crazy. Maybe he was, he never really could figure out that one. “We get to sing and perform and there’s never been a single written assignment!”

“Well, there was that one--” Crystal began to interject.

“There’s never been a single written assignment that I turned in!” Gold exclaimed, “Plus, Eusine is just such a funny guy.”

“I don’t sing, I don’t act, and Mr. Eusine is crazy,” Silver responded without a single trace of amusement in his voice. “He took a year off of teaching to follow that band around, then he got arrested for sneaking backstage.”

“Which was _awesome_!” Gold exclaimed, turning to face Silver once more. “You _have_ to try coming one day! Eusine won’t even be mad that you’ve been skipping all year! Pleeeaasseee?” Gold made the mistake of grabbing Silver’s shoulders once more. (Maybe he really did have a mental disorder if he forgot that quickly?)

“I said, don’t fucking touch me!” Silver hissed, once again through clenched teeth, pushing Gold away rather violently. “Why the hell would I want to go to some retarded class and spend time with you idiots?” Gold scooted away from him, frowning slightly. It didn’t look right. His face should still be graced with a goofy grin, but Silver couldn’t bring himself to stop once he had started. “Get the hell out of my way,” he yelled, pushing past Gold to get out of the booth. Once he was standing up, he calmly stated, “The only reason I even hung out with you today was so I could eat a fucking dinner, okay? We’re not friends, and we never will be.”

He meant it, so why did it hurt him to say it? Why did it hurt him that the two people who dragged him to the restaurant in the first place were staring at him as if he had just told them he had a collection of dead babies in his basement? Why did he want to sit back down, apologize, and continue listening to their inane banter? It was too much for Silver to handle, so he simply mumbled, while averting his eyes, “Thanks for dinner, I guess. I’m going hom-- somewhere that isn’t here. Anywhere but here,” and he walked out of the restaurant, instantly regretting both his outburst and the fact that he left his milkshake inside.

He didn’t know where he was going to go, considering the fact that Gold had driven them to the restaurant, which was in the opposite direction from the school than the house that Silver despised. He couldn’t call Blue to come pick him up because he didn’t have any change to use a pay phone. So, instead of effectively storming off, he ended up regretfully glancing back in the restaurant through the window, and seeing the two acquaintances of his still staring back at him. He decided that he needed to at least pretend that he had a purposeful direction to walk in when he saw Gold get up and start walking towards the door as well, so he began to walk (Was it really walking when he was practically running away from the boy he had insulted?) as fast as he could back towards the school.

“Silver,” Gold called out, slamming the door open, and jogging towards him, “C’mon, buddy, at least let me drive you home, okay?”

“No,” Silver said in response, attempting to speed up his steps, but his legs simply weren’t as long as Gold’s so it wasn’t easy to out walk him. “And don't call me ‘buddy’. It’s repulsive.”

“Okay, okay,” Gold mumbled, “It would just be me and you, Silver. Crys’s dad is coming to get her to take her to her volleyball game anyways.”

“I can walk,” Silver responded, despite the fact that he desperately didn’t want to walk for miles only to end up at a house he didn’t want to go in.

“Silver, stop. I know you have some image to keep up or something, but you’re obviously not entirely heartless if you came with us to begin with.” Gold reached his hand out to grab Silver’s hand in order to halt his steps, but he stopped himself immediately, fearing what might happen if he were to touch the moody boy again.

“I don’t like you,” the grey-eyed boy replied, yet for some reason he stopped. He didn’t want to stop, he really didn’t, but his feet simply wouldn’t move any further, so he settled for saying, “But I guess I’ll let you drive me home… Since it means so much to you, that is.” He just couldn’t explain why his stomach was starting to feel warm when he climbed into the passenger’s seat of the golden car (Yes, really. Gold’s car was painted a shiny gold color.), but for once in his life, he was able to accept that he liked the feeling.


	3. Car Rides

Every decision he made was the wrong one, Silver decided, yet for some reason they felt so right. He loathed being stuck in such a small space with the chatty boy, who was in fact a _terrible_ driver (Did he _really_ have to look at Silver instead of the road every time he wanted to say something?). He felt nervous to be the only person to whom the boy’s attention was concentrated on. He was itching to get out of the car, in fact, even the restaurant seemed like a better option - at least there he was practically ignored. However, despite all of those feelings running rampant through his mind, he still felt that annoying warm feeling in his stomach. He tried to create a purpose for it from thin air, saying to himself it was the food, making him sick, but he knew that was only lying to himself. Lying to himself was weak.

“Silv? You there?” The boy (His name is Gold. Call him Gold) once more turned to look at Silver, instead of keeping his eyes on the goddamn road.

Silver opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t think of any words which would express the fear he was feeling for every fraction of a second the boy was looking away from the road. Sure, he was darting his eyes towards the road ahead frequently, but his goddamn face was turned sideways. “The road, dumbass,” Silver finally managed to say after what felt like ages to him but was honestly only around a second or two of thinking. When Gold didn’t immediately turn his head forwards again, only halfway looking back towards the road, Silver tentatively reached his hand out, one finger outstretched and firmly poked Gold’s cheek, pushing his head forward once more (Why wouldn’t his hand stop shaking?).

After quickly reaching up to feel his face then promptly lowering his hand, Gold seemingly pretended as if Silver’s insufferable social awkwardness was incredibly normal, by simply whining, “It’s _fiiiine_ , Silv,” darting his eyes sideways, but keeping his face pointed towards the windshield. “I’ve only been in like, one wreck ever, and that was _completely_ the other guy’s fault.” He was terrible at the entire ‘reassurance,’ deal, but Silver was too preoccupied by staring at his hand, mentally shaming it for acting on its own accord (But why was Gold’s face so damn soft and squishy? Were his own cheeks that soft too? He couldn’t help but wonder).

“Silv, if you don’t want me looking at you, you’re going to have to be a little more of a conversationalist here. Just a few words, all I’m askin’ for,” Gold continued on with his own conversation, after not having given Silver more than thirty seconds to recover from his hand issue. Why did conversations have to move so damn fast?

“I don’t normally talk,” Silver replied, wishing that his words sounded less needy and more bitter. Bitter was good. Needy was weak.

“Well, you’re in luck then, because your new _friend_ just absolutely loves to talk,” Gold said a little too quickly with that stupid, insolent smile on his face before tactlessly adding, “That’s me.”

“We’re not friends,” Silver replied, “I don’t have friends.” Ugh, how cringy could he get? It was basically a call for help at that point, which Silver detested.

“How dark and mysterious,” Gold replied, laughing at Silver’s (Also needy sounding) worthless attempt to shake him off. “Seriously though, you’re my bro now. No backing out of it.”

“Never agreed to that,” Silver replied, rolling his eyes and turning towards the window to stare out of it. Despite the fact that he wished to keep his eyes on the road due to the fact that the terrible driver at the wheel refused to do as such diligently, Silver felt an unnatural hotness rushing to his face which he simply couldn't explain. Maybe he really was getting sick…?

“You don’t _agree_ to being my bro, you just _are_ now,” Gold replied, “Is there really so much wrong with that?”

No, Silver’s mind instantly said, but instead he growled a quiet, “Of course.”

“Friends aren’t bad. It means I’m here to help,” Gold said. Silver continued to stare at the window, but instead of looking through, he found himself staring at the reflection of his ‘friend.’

“I don’t need help,” Silver quickly snapped, forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the reflection. He didn’t need the stupid jock to be his friend. He was smarter than Gold. He was stronger than Gold. How could Gold help _him_?”

“Silv, I’m not saying you do,” Gold sighed, _obviously_ patronizing Silver. Obviously. He was so damn arrogant.

“Fuck off,” Silver said, feeling his cheeks finally cool down as he realized the fact that the boy who claimed to want to be his friend was only attempting to make fun of him - to make him feel weak. “And stop calling me that retarded nickname.” His words were laced with the venom he normally gave to every person who addressed him, yet for some reason, even though the boy deserved it, he felt guilty addressing Gold as such.

“Why?” Gold asked, his voice quieter than it had been all day, maybe even quieter than he’d ever been in his whole life.

“I don't like you. At all. You’re annoying. You’re arrogant. You just want to make me feel helpless. So fuck off.” Silver was honestly surprised at his own level of articulation. In any normal circumstance, he’d simply resort to violence and ignore any questioning. So why did it hurt so much to use words instead of violence? Why did telling Gold how he felt make him so ashamed of himself?

“Silver, you don’t mean that…” Gold’s words were borderline mumbled that time - something which Silver didn’t even know he was capable of. For some strange reason, it was tearing his heart in two. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I... just wanna be friends.”

Despite Silver’s anger (Was it even really anger anymore when all he was feeling was the pain of the fact that Gold sounded almost broken compared to his normal optimism?), he longed to tell Gold that that actually sounded pretty damn nice. Despite his annoying nature, despite his stupidity, despite his overwhelming optimism, despite everything that Silver feel was ‘wrong’ with him, Gold seemed like a great person. But, of course, Silver’s mind wouldn’t let him tell the boy all of that. So, as the car rolled closer and closer to Silver’s street (Why did they have to be so close already?), Silver stared intently out the window (More of at. He liked seeing the boy in the reflection behind him, no matter how slight it was.) and said, “I don’t hate you,” once more feeling his face heat up. (It wasn’t even that hot outside, so why was he getting so hot?)

“Uhh…” Gold snuck a glance at Silver, who saw it through the reflection in the window yet resisted the urge to urge Gold to look at the road, not him. “Thanks…?” Gold sounded so unsure of his thanks that Silver felt as if he simply _had_ to elaborate.

“I hate everyone else. Except Blue. I don’t hate you,” Silver was sure that his face matched his hair as Gold turned onto his street, and he could even ignore the dread forming in his stomach in favor of the war feeling growing from his words.

“Thanks then Silv,” Gold said, then added on “-er, Silv **er** ,” quickly to cover his tracks, but honestly? Silver rather preferred the nickname, despite the fact that he’d never have the guts to tell the boy whose name matched his. “I don’t hate you either.”

“Ob-obviously,” Silver sputtered in return as they pulled up alongside his house. There was already a car in the driveway, Silver noticed with dismay as Gold slowed to a stop in the street in front of his house. He refused to make eye contact with his ‘friend’ as he said, “I guess I’ll see you Monday, or whatever,” quietly, opening his door and stepping out.

“Sooner, if you want. What’s your number?” Gold leaned over the console to hand Silver a smartphone that had some ‘insert new contact’ screen up, but Silver didn’t take it. With a quick glance behind himself at the house, Silver pushed it back towards Gold.

“I don’t have a phone,” Silver replied, hanging his head slightly. “A-and you should really go.”

He figured Gold would laugh at him or call him poor or something, but instead he just said, “Then give me your email. I’ll just email you. You’ve got a school issued laptop, right?”

“I do,” Silver mumbled, quickly writing down his email on a pad of paper Gold handed him. “I don’t have internet at home though, so I might not answer. Look, I really have to go,” Silver glanced once more at his house, seeing the curtain move slightly as if someone had been watching through it.

“Okay, okay,” Gold said, “See you when I see you.”

“Bye,” Silver said, pulling his backpack on, shutting the car door and beginning to walk up the driveway to his house, but instead turning and walking down the street instead. (After, of course, he heard Gold pull away.) He didn't want his good mood to be ruined just yet. Gold actually wanted to hang out with _him_. Despite the fact that Gold was annoying and stupid among other things (Some of which were good), Silver felt comfortable being with him and actually wanted to spend time with him too.

He didn’t take into account the fact that he had barely waited for said boy to drive away from his house however, as he heard the noise of a car slowing down behind him and the voice he was almost used to saying, “Y’know, normally when someone gets dropped off at home, they go inside, not walk back the way they were driven from.”

“G-Gold,” Silver exclaimed, attempting to straighten out his face and hide the smile he didn’t realize he was wearing. “I thought you left…”

“Don’t sound so disappointed to see me,” Gold said, laughing, (Keep calm, Silver told himself, he’s not laughing _at_ you). “I had to turn around, and there you were.”

“I’m just going to see Blue,” Silver lied, making up some excuse that he hoped Gold would buy. He wanted to hop back into the passenger seat of Gold’s stupid gold car, but it was nearing dusk and he didn’t wish to inconvenience the boy into not wanting anything to do with him.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Gold said, slowly rolling his car alongside Silver as he began to walk again.

“I’ll be fine,” Silver responded, walking faster, which was stupid because he wouldn’t be able to get away no matter how fast he walked if Gold really wanted to stay beside him.

“Get in the car, I’ll drive you there,” Gold said, stopping the car. Silver longed to get in, but he knew if Gold drove him all the way to Blue’s house, they would only be met with an empty house and a lot of explaining for Silver to do. She wasn’t going to be home until the next morning.

So, instead of logically explaining to Gold that he simply didn’t want to go home, so he was just walking around, Silver simply turned back towards his house and said, “I’ll, umm, go home.”

Luckily enough for him (Regretfully enough for him), Gold simply leaned further out the window and said, “Uhh, okay. Night, I guess,” and slowly drove down the street. (Very slowly, too slowly.)

Silver waited until Gold turned at the stop sign at the end of the street to slump down to the ground, staring intently at his house down the street. He didn’t want to go home, but he knew there was nowhere else for him to go. Judging by the sky, the night would hold a high risk for rain, so he didn’t really want to sleep outside. He only stayed sitting on the sidewalk for about half a minute though, not wanting to accept the weakness in himself. As he was standing up, however, he heard a car pulling up and he heard that voice once more. “I _knew_ something was wrong. Get in the car Silver.”

Silver glanced once more at his house down the street, and walked towards Gold’s car. He couldn't hold in his smile as he opened the door and got in the passenger seat. “Thanks,” he mumbled, pleading silently that he wouldn't have to explain himself.

Gold must have had a killer sixth sense (Or maybe he was just wasn’t socially inept like Silver?) because instead of asking what was up with him, Gold simply said, “It felt like tonight was a good night for hanging out and playing games all night. Didn’t wanna do it alone.” Silver smiled again, barely even caring that Gold kept glancing at him. It actually felt nice to have a friend, he decided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite part in this whole thing was when Silver poked Gold's cheek. It just felt so perfectly awkward for him >_<   
> Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoy it. The next chapter might not be out until after August 21st, however, as I have a _ton _to do between now and then, and won't have much time to write until then. I'll try and get it out sooner though! Make sure to leave a comment if you enjoyed this chapter (Or even if you didn't)__


	4. Games?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to TricksterMika, who has started writing a PreciousMetal story that I feel is so much more in character than this story, so seriously go and check it out, because it's the shit!
> 
> Sorry it took me so long to update this! I had to move and get situated and all that junk, so it took a while before I had steady writing time again, but that now time is here, so expect chapters rather regularly again <3

“You’re telling me that you’ve never owned a video game system, in your entire life?” Gold asked for what must have been the millionth time, after Silver explained that he had honestly no clue how to play any of the games Gold had been proudly showing him of his collection. Hoard. Hoard was a better term for the mass of plastic cases with discs inside that Gold had sitting on a bookshelf - Yes, on a shelf meant for books. Books, which cultivate knowledge instead of destroying it as these games no doubt would. Silver determined to stay adverse to the fun which Gold was describing.

 

“I have no need for one,” Silver explained, not wanting to go into the real reasons why he had never had something so expensive in his entire life.

 

“Silv, it’s not about  _ need _ . It’s about the fact that they are a beautiful way to bond with friends and get to know new people,” Gold said, vigorously searching through a box of neatly organized controllers.

 

“Getting to know new people?” Silver immediately questioned, “As in, on the internet?” He didn’t quite understand why Gold would want to get to know anyone, especially some stranger who could, and most likely would, lie about every little detail of his life.

 

“Yeah, Silv. In this day and age, you can’t just stumble upon more than one perfect friend like me unless you specifically look for people with similar interests. What better place to start than the fact that you both like at least one of the same games, right?” Silver simply gave Gold the best menacing stare he could manage, slightly narrowing his eyes, setting his jaw, and refusing to break eye contact. There were so many things wrong with Gold’s statement that he didn’t even know where to begin.

 

Any effect from his glare was effectively dispelled as Silver sputtered out a menagerie of the problems which he felt the need to address, “Who said you were perf-- Why can’t you just-- Games aren’t--” After he realized he was getting nowhere with his mind running as fast as it was, he just threw his hands up in the air and said, “You’re an idiot.” 

 

“Well said, Silv,” Gold replied, reaching out and almost patting Silver on the back, but Silver expertly pulled away before the boy’s hand could make contact with him. 

 

“You really are an idiot,” Silver replied, standing as far away from Gold as he could without being overly rude. He just didn’t want his hand on his damn body, was that too hard to understand?

 

Gold facetiously slapped his hand to his forehead and said, “I keep forgetting, sorry Silvy,” with a broad smile instead of the seriousness that Silver felt he deserved as the boy’s ‘friend.’

 

“Whatever,” he replied, sitting down in one of the chairs in front of the TV and mumbling, “I don’t even know why I came here…” He pushed his hair out of his face with his hand on his forehead before tilting his head downwards so his hair cascaded around him like a waterfall of blood. A sigh permeated the strands of hair as he rested his head on his hand. 

 

“You came here because I was worried about how strange you were acting when I dropped you off at home, so now you’re stuck here for the night. Forecast said scattered thunderstorms throughout the night,” he held up his phone as if it mattered to SIlver what some stupid gadget said, “And I didn’t want you sitting on the side of the road acting all grumpy while it was storming.” Gold refused to look at him, not that Silver really cared. He was pretending to not look at Gold while he rested his head on his hand and his arm on his knee.His elbow was starting to dig into his leg from the pressure of his head, but it was better than removing his curtain and allowing the darker haired boy to see that he had been staring at him through the hair. (Why had he been staring at him?) “I didn’t mean to almost pat your back, I just forgot. Again… But hey, I’m trying, so that has to count for something, doesn’t it?”

 

“Not really,” Silver snapped, tacking on a barely whispered, “But it still does,” on the end. He tensed up as he realized that there was actually a possibility that the annoyingly friendly boy had heard his embarrassing proclamation of forgiveness, but judged by the silence which bore into Silver’s ears, he only heard the rude part. Which was worse?

 

“I really am sorry,” Gold mumbled, flopping down into the seat next to Silver, making it much easier for him to discreetly spy on the dark haired boy. Did he actually have a tan? Why was Silver noticing such annoying things about him was the better question. It was verbally silent for a few seconds while Gold fidgeted with his stupidly bright yellow cargo shorts, pulling one of the pockets off the velcro and pushing it back on repeatedly, causing noise opposite of what Silver wanted (Why did he want the boy to continue talking so badly?) to fill the room. It wasn’t until Silver was about to hiss at the boy to stop that he finally spoke again. (Why was Silver filled with joy when the boy opened his obnoxious mouth) “Are you going to tell me what was wrong earlier? Or are we going to pretend like nothing happened and just play some games like normal teenagers?” Gold’s voice was steady, but Silver could tell from experience that it was forced to be as such. He obviously wasn’t used to the serious tone he had taken on.

 

Silver contemplated actually telling him what had happened earlier, but he knew he’d never be able to force the words out. They had never been spoken out loud, only vague hints to Blue, so he couldn’t just dump his life story on the boy who he had only recently really met. So, instead of relenting to the sternness in Gold’s voice, against what his heart wanted, Silver mumbled, “The second one.” 

 

“O-okay,” Gold replied, his breath hitching slightly as he leaned forward to turn on the weird box shaped gaming console which looked considerably older than the rest of the ones crowded in the entertainment center under the TV. “Here,” he said, finally making eye contact with the redhead, who had lifted his head up to stare at the boy who he was beginning to accept as a friend, “Take this.” He handed Silver a strangely shaped purple controller that Silver had no idea how to hold. He took another one for himself, causing Silver to see a reason to raise a question. 

 

“Why am I stuck with purple while you get the silver colored one?” It  _ was _ his namesake after all, Silver mentally noted, refusing to state such reasoning out loud. 

 

“I didn’t realize colors were such a big deal to you,” Gold replied, laughing as he held out the silver controller to Silver. Silver deigned to trade though, already embarrassed enough with his frivolous objected that he mistakenly voiced prior. 

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Silver said, attempting to fit his hands properly onto the controller, eventually realizing that they fell right into place due to the design. 

 

“Whatever you say, Silv,” Gold replied. The name didn’t even really bother Silver anymore. Instead, he struggled not to smile as the taller boy grinned at him and called him by it. “We’re going to play some Super Smash because it seems like your type of game.” 

 

It wasn’t Silver’s type of game.

 

“Wait, where am I on the screen?” Silver asked for what must have been at least the tenth time.

 

“Silver, bro, it’s literally impossible to miss.You’re the bright pink spherical dude,” Gold said, getting up and pointing to a blob on the screen. How was that even a character, by the way? Did putting eyes and a mouth on a circle make it unique enough to be considered its own character?

 

“Can’t we just play something else?” Silver groaned, struggling immensely to keep a smile off his face. He focused on pulling the red cuffs of his dark jacket over his hands, yet keeping them on the controller. He liked it when his sleeves went over his hands, due to the fact that he wasn’t allowed to wear his gloves to school anymore. It made them warm. His thoughts weren’t distracting enough to make him forget the fact that he wanted to smile, only to forget the fact that he had to hold it back. So, naturally, Silver was quite surprised when he felt something jab violently into the side of his cheek, poking what he could have sworn was a hole in it.

 

“Uhhhh,” Gold mumbled, holding his finger still less than an inch away from Silver’s face, “I think I need to cut my fingernails.”

 

“Why in the hell did you just stab me?” Silver asked, all traces of smile erased from his face as he rubbed his face vigorously as if it needed to be cleaned.

 

“I swear, I didn’t mean to,” Gold said, holding his hands up in defense of the situation. He didn’t have any right to defend himself though, or so Silver thought. After all, he had just jammed his finger into Silver’s face. “I really didn’t mean to,” Gold blabbered on, “It’s just, you did it to me in the car and you were smiling so I thought ha, payback time and I wanted to poke you, gently, in the cheek and point out the fact that you were actually not acting all grumpy for once, but I guess my fingernails are too long.” His words were frantically spoken, similar to those which would be exchanged before someone failed to diffuse a fight. It was most likely what Gold was going for, except minus the failing part, given Silver’s track record. Silver, surprisingly, didn’t want Gold to see him like that though. He wanted Gold to know him as Silver, not as that one kid with the bright red hair who draws red out of other people.

 

Silver squinted his eyes at Gold, causing him to scoot back a little. It sort of hurt Silver, knowing that the boy who kept insisting they were friends was still scared of him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Silver said quietly, staring at his hands, which had dropped the controller onto his dark pants. His outfit didn’t exactly add to his reputation, Silver supposed, thinking of how no matter how hot it was, he always wore long dark pants and the same dark jacket. It definitely wasn’t the most comfortable of attire.

 

“You’re not?” Gold asked, scooting his chair closer to its original position next to Silver.

 

“I’m not a monster,” Silver said back, biting his lip gently to distract himself.

 

“Silv, I know you’re not a monster,” Gold said, scooting his chair even closer than it was before, yet luckily restraining himself from touching the redhead.

 

“You thought I was going to attack you,” Silver replied, “I’m exactly the same-- Nevermind…” Silver stared down at his lap again, struggling desperately to ignore the boy that was sitting next to him. He could see him out of the corner of his eye, just staring at him. Silver wasn’t going to make eye contact with the boy while he was staring at him as if he were dying. He didn’t need Gold’s pity.

 

“I didn’t think--” Gold began to resist, but Silver didn’t feel like sitting there and listening to god damn lies.

 

“You thought I was going to  _ attack _ you,” Silver replied, hissing the word attack. He longed to leave, to retreat somewhere where he didn’t have to feel as if all he was good for was hurting others. He reached up and tenderly felt the purplish-brown skin around his eye. He looked like all he cared about were fights, but he really didn’t like to get in them. It was just his defense mechanism, that was it.

 

“Silv, I trust you,” Gold said, although Silver wasn’t quite sure he believed him. “I trust you not to attack me, it was just me being all showy. Is it okay if I give you a bro hug to clear up the misunderstanding?” He held his arms out broadly, as if Silver were simply going to jump into them. (Would it feel nice if he did?)

 

Of course, Silver’s mind screamed. He hadn’t ever really had a real hug. His mom died when he was little and his dad… he wasn’t really one for hugs. “No,” his mouth blurted out (Thankfully. How embarrassing would it have been to hug the boy?). Gold’s arms fell slowly to his side, as if he were deflating.

 

“Can I give you just a bro pat on the back?” Gold asked tentatively, raising up just one hand. A pat on the back didn’t seem so bad…

 

On the other hand, he had already established that he was adamantly against any form of contact, and he didn’t want to change his opinions so quickly just because the boy was nice. “No.” Silver kept his voice stern and his face emotionless. Why was it so hard to that with Gold around?

 

“Bro high five?” Gold broke out in a slight grin as he waggled his hand around in the air.

 

“No,” Silver replied, rolling his eyes slightly as the boy lowered his hand once more.

 

“Bro  _ low _ five?” Silver couldn’t contain a slight sputter of laugher as the boy he was truly enjoying his time with waggled his eyebrows at Silver. After the laughter was out, Silver felt obligated to agree to at least the low five. He couldn’t bring himself to actually  _ say _ yes though, so instead he allowed his smile to break out across his face and he stuck his hand out, allowing Gold to gently slap it, while he over excitedly exclaimed, “Bro low five!!!”

 

No, Silver decided firmly. Friends weren’t a bad things. This friend might just be the one thing that kept him from going insane from his repeated routine of school, avoiding home, and getting in fights (Not in that order.). Now, he had another thing to add to his mix, and for once, it was something he enjoyed.

 

“Want to try another round of this game?” Silver asked, attempting to grin at Gold the same that the boy always broke out in grins at him. Based on the infectious grin he received in return, Silver was rather certain that he had succeeded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! I felt the need to include another face poke, because seriously, once you try it, poking faces is super great. Poor Gold just didn't have the right angle since he's taller than Silv. Fingernail aimed downwards is an owie :( Leave comments if you enjoyed it (Or even if you didn't, they'll still be appreciated!) and thank you so much for reading!


	5. "Later"

Silver was determined that it was a fact that he was eternally weak. Despite the fact that he had greatly enjoyed his night with the boy who was still fighting for the title of friend both in Silver’s mind and quite blatantly outside as well, he still felt weak. His weakness was what led him to slumping over at the thought of once more being alone when the boy was driving away. His weakness was what allowed him to agree to come to the boy’s house to ‘chill.’ It was his weakness which forced him to agree to staying for dinner - even though he had initially said no, he couldn’t hold that sentiment steady when Gold quite literally got down on his knees and begged. Weakness though, Silver started to think, wasn’t always a bad thing. It had gained him companionship. It had gained him a sliver of happiness. Best of all though? It had gained him dinner.

“Why can’t you be as polite as your friend, Gold?” Gold’s mom asked her son the same question she had asked him about ten thousand times since they sat down to eat at the dinner table. Silver had hardly spoken a word, but simple thanks for the meal had made her assume he would be a good role model for Gold. Silver wasn’t a good role model for anyone, he merely appreciated the meatloaf she made for dinner. It was akin to heaven to him.

“At least I’ve never gotten in a fight!” Gold said, accusatorily pointing a finger at Silver, who flinched slightly as his hand reached for the crescent shaped mark which was faintly engraved into his cheek.

“You act as if I’m a heathen,” Silver muttered under his breath, feeling his cheeks heat up as he realized that the woman’s opinion of him must be falling, due to the fact that fights were usually reserved for the dredges of society. Silver simply had an image to keep up with others, so he hadn't worried too much about the negativity it must give him as a person.

“Silv, I act as no such thing,it's just a tad bit frustrating that my very own mother chooses all of my friends over me,” Gold leaned over close to Silver, sticking out his bottom lip and pretending to pout. Silver extended his finger slowly until it poked Gold’s forehead, making it a point to jab with his fingernail a small amount, and slowly applied pressure until it pushed Gold's head away. 

“I still think it’s so cute how you two happened to make friends with matching names. Gold and Silver,” Gold’s mom cooed, earning a bright laugh and agreeance from Gold and a face to match his hair from Silver.

“Silv doesn’t think it’s cute, mom, he’s too tough to be cute,” Gold started laughing as he looked towards Silver and waggled his eyebrows, but after about half a second, he stopped abruptly, froze up, and spat out, “W-Well, I didn’t mean like, t-that you yourself were like, umm y’know, I just meant you were not the type to be umm, uhh, called cute.” Gold’s voice was slightly squeaky, and his words were escaping his mouth at such a speed that Gold’s mind shouldn’t have been able to keep up with them. 

Silver raised an eyebrow at the stuttering mess that was his friend, not even trying hard enough to resist taking another bite of dinner, fully chewing it, and swallowing before he said, “What’s gotten into you?”

“Force of habit?” Gold said, questioning himself very obviously, “I’m uhh, used to being smooth with the ladies, so I flipped when I realized I wasn’t being… smooth?”

“Smooth consists of squealing in a high pitched voice?” Silver struggled desperately against a smile which was creeping up from inside of him, but he couldn’t hold it back, letting it grace his face with happiness instead of a scowl.

“Ugh, and that’s coming from the one with the black eye? You don’t understand anything,” Gold leaned back in his seat superciliously, balancing the chair on the back two legs precariously, yet there was a touch of pink that still graced his cheeks. Silver almost wished he’d fall. Almost.

“You two are quite the jokers,” Gold’s mom laughed, instantly raising an objection from Silver, which he just barely quelled. He didn’t desire to create an even more miscreant image of himself in Gold’s mother’s mind. He already showed up to her house with a black eye. In his everyday life, no one could care less about his health, so it was... strange, to say the least to enter a household where it so prominently stuck out. 

Gold and his Mother continued to converse as dinner continued, Silver getting multiple helpings of everything, only stopping once Gold’s mother commented on his voracious appetite. He didn’t want to seem as if he were trying to take her for all she was worth, and he was pretty much full anyways. At home, he wasn’t used to being allowed to get seconds. He didn’t normally eat dinner at all. 

It wasn’t until after a while after dinner, when Gold and Silver were once more attempting to play games together, that Silver’s apprehension, which he normally felt every waking second (And most likely in his sleep as well, he simply couldn’t prove it), returned. He knew he had to return home at some point, and his fear of doing as such was sparked into life once more when Gold’s mom knocked on the door to say, “Gold, honey, I think you need to drive Silver home soon. It’s getting pretty late, and I don’t want his family keeping him from coming over again.”

Gold glanced over at Silver, who had immediately tensed up against his will, then quickly said, “He asked his mom if he could spend the night before we left, and she said it was okay.” 

“Well, I’m sorry honey, but you didn’t ask me first. I already told you earlier this week that Crys couldn’t spend the night this weekend since you got detention. You should be happy I let Silver hang out this late.” She put her hand on her hip when Gold opened his mouth to argue and said, “Gold, don’t make me embarrass you in front of your friend.”

“Ugh, okay mom,” Gold said, looking over at Silver, who had completely stopped listening to the conversation as he realized that that was where his fun night ended. He wouldn’t cry though, he was determined to keep at least a semblance of strength.

“Thank you,” she said, giving Silver a second glance with furrowed eyebrows before walking down the hall to her room.

“Ugh, why does she have to be like that?” Gold mumbled, turning off the game system and slowly packing away the two controllers they were using into their correct spots. “It’s only midnight anyways. Stupid rules. Stupid detention. Fucking hate this,” Gold kept mumbling, earning a glare from Silver. He didn’t need to have the idiotic grumbles of someone a lot less intelligent than him filling his ears while he was trying to not panic.

“Shut up,” Silver hissed, too quiet for it to have the proper impact, or so he thought. Maybe it was the hostile tone it had. Maybe it was the fact that his fists were clenched when he said it. Maybe it was the fact that he was shaking slightly as he held back his tears, but something set Gold off.

“You can’t just act all tough,” Gold’s voice was only a slight amount of volume over normal talking level, but compared to his previous mutterings, it caused Silver to take a few steps back. “I know there’s something wrong, but instead of telling me, you just either change the subject or try and act as if you’re angry. That only works on people you don’t know, Silv.” Gold’s words were spoken with a malice of sort, as if the idiot thought he could threaten Silver into telling him his life story.

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Silver replied, clenching his teeth as well as his fists and taking slow steps backwards towards the doorway, “And if you think just acting friendly for a day is going to make me trust you, you really are as stupid as I thought you were.” He had to be strong. He had to prove to himself that he wasn’t weak. There wasn’t any room for the weakness that he knew was constantly trying to take over, so he had to fight it away. He had to quell the uprising of weakness in his veins.

“Yeah? Well what would it take to make you trust someone, Silv? Because as far as I can see, you don’t - and won’t - trust anyone.” For every minuscule step Silver took back, Gold took one of equal space forward, staying close to Silver as he spoke, jabbing his pointer finger into the other boy’s chest to make a point.

That action set something off in Silver’s mind that was seemingly dormant previously. He grabbed the finger of the hand which had jabbed forcefully into his chest and yanked to the side, pulling Gold forcefully into a stumble. As Gold caught himself and reoriented to be standing upright properly, Silver hissed, “I said, don’t fucking touch me,” and raised his fist to throw a punch, but as he let his eyes travel to his target, his hand slowly unclenched as it hung there, hovering in the air, ready to hurt the taller boy until he agreed with everything Silver said. He slowly dropped the arm which he had been holding with a death grip and turned around, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding as he did so. 

He could feel his hands shaking, but he didn’t know why. He got in fights quite frequently, so why couldn’t he carry it out with Gold? (Was it the fact that his eyes ever so beautif- Silver cut off that thought immediately. Gold's eyes were far from beautiful.) Silver kept walking, even as he heard the calls of Gold behind him. He walked down the stairs, ignoring the growing pit in his stomach, and was nearly at the front door before he felt his hand grabbed and jerked the opposite of his direction of motion. His hands were still shaking, and he didn’t feel as if he had the strength to wrench his hand free, no matter how much it made his skin crawl to know that the other boy was touching his hand so intimately. After all, the only time people held hands as such was when they were involved with each other.

“Silv, c’mon,” he heard the one behind him whimper gently as if that would fix Silver’s fucked up mental state. Silver couldn’t be fixed. He knew that already, so why was Gold so intent on being friends with him? “Look, I’ll drive you home, just say  _ something _ ,” Gold’s hand seemed to be shaking as well, Either that or Silver’s was simply shaking enough for the both of him by the time he turned around to face the other boy, who he had most likely ruined chances of being friends with.

“My hand,” Silver mumbled, refusing to meet eye contact with Gold as he shook his hand slightly, causing him to jump slightly and release his hand immediately.

“Uhh, of course! Sorry, I didn’t even realize I still, uhh, had it,” Gold spoke quickly once more despite the fact that Silver had attempted to attack him mere moments before. He baffled Silver. How could someone find the strength to be so resilient in the face of change? If someone threatened Silver as such, he would never speak to them again. That is, if he were in the position to do so.

“Just drive me home,” Silver said, glaring his worst glare at Gold. Glares only work if the anger reaches the eyes though. Otherwise, they are merely pointed stares. 

“Silv, you can’t chase me off,” Gold didn’t budge, despite the fact that Silver was holding the door open as if to usher him on. It was irritating to have to hold it open for longer than needed though, as it was a windy night out and it was causing Silver’s hair to fly everywhere, no doubt leaving him looking as much a mess on the outside as he felt on the inside.

“Watch me,” Silver said, his voice barely above a whisper. He wished he had meant to say it in a hissed voice. He could have passed it off as intentional if he had caught himself, but instead it just came out with a slight crack of his voice, paired with the immediate bitter mutter afterwards of, “Not like I’m worth the trouble anyways.” Silver rolled his eyes, if only to convince himself that he wasn’t going to cry, and he stepped outside, leaving the door wide open behind him as he walked over to Gold’s car and opened the passenger door (Of course the idiot left his car doors unlocked), collapsing inside immediately. It wouldn’t matter that he was weak soon, because he’d be home, where all he was was weak - without a friend in the world once more. 

He closed his eyes, rubbing his eyes quite harshly (Which wasn’t a good idea, what with the black eye and all), hoping Gold didn’t think he was crying (He wasn’t. He wasn’t at all. He didn’t even come close.). He kept rubbing his eyes even after his tears (What tears?) were long gone, if only to experience the minute entertainment of the flashes of light which danced across his eyelids from the pressure. Any enjoyment that he was getting from such a frivolous activity was immediately shattered, however, as he yanked his hands away as he heard the driver’s door open. Gold sat down, closing the door, yet Silver didn’t hear the car start.

It was silent for quite some time, in which Silver mostly wished that he hadn’t snapped at the boy who he refused to look at. He wished that Gold wasn’t such a damn idiot (And that his eyes didn't keep coming to Silver's mind the second he thought his name), that way he wouldn’t have to go home at all, but he did, and it sucked. He shouldn’t have snapped though.. He might have lost the boy on just their first day truly knowing each other. “Wanna tell me why you’re suddenly so high strung, Silv? You are worth so much more ‘trouble’ than you’re giving me right now, because friends are worth all the baggage that comes along with them, and you’re my bro, dammit.”

“I’d rather not talk about it right now,” Silver replied, stealing a quick glance at the boy, but turning his head abruptly to the other side once he noticed the golden eyes staring back at him. Why was Gold so intent on getting into his personal life? It wasn’t like it was all that important that he was upset. After all, no one but Blue had ever truly cared before, so why should Gold?

“Not right  _ now _ ?” Gold asked, and Silver could practically hear the smile from the hope rising in his voice - he was hoping that that simply meant that Silver would talk to him later, when he trusted him more. And honestly? To Silver that sounded like a pretty damn great idea.

“Later,” Silver mumbled, staring intently at his hands and fighting against the urge to say what his mind was longing for. However, he broke down as he glanced once more to the boy next to him, who couldn’t stop grinning for some idiotic reason. Why was he grinning? Silver had merely agreed to dump baggage on him once he trusted him enough to… However, that smile still was able to force Silver to squeeze out the words, “Br-- I’ll... shake on it?” He tentatively reached his hand out, refusing to make eye contact with Gold, yet looking forward to the handshake a strange amount.

“Duuuude! Bro handshake!” Gold exclaimed, his eyes lighting up as he hurriedly shaking Silver’s hand rapidly up and down (Were his hands always this warm and soft? Ugh, why did Silver keep thinking such disgusting thoughts?).

“Br-Bro handshake,” Silver mumbled. His face was flushed to match the shade of his hair by the time Gold finally (regretfully?) released his hand. He couldn’t get the strange thoughts about the other boy’s hand out of his head, so instead he simply mumbled, “You better start driving before, y’know, your mum starts to scream at you.”

“She’s chill,” Gold replied, yet started the death-machine of a car up anyways, “Your parents gonna be mad that you’re home so late?”

“No,” Silver lied, “He--They shouldn’t even notice.”

“Sweeeeet! I wished I lived in that house,” Gold replied, causing a barely noticeable shudder from Silver, as he gently shook his head. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything though, after all, he had said later, hadn’t he?


	6. Tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this one gets a bit darker than most of my other chapters, so just beware the heaviness of it all. I hope you guys enjoy this though, as fun and games can't always exist. Sometimes sadness is required to build character, unfortunately...

   The end of the night usually came with a warm welcome from Silver. It was a time where he finally had peace. Those wee hours of the morning when no one else in the house was awake, and he could finally sleep in peace and silence were welcomed by him with open arms. Well, except for the part that he wouldn’t welcome anything with open arms, as that would require letting it into his arms. Gross. However, he usually gave the kindest welcome he could give to the end of the night - meaning he acknowledged it as much better than terrible. Silver was beginning to learn that traditions only easily withstood the test of time if nothing else came in the way. Gold came in the way. 

If he were in anyone else's car, which he wouldn't be to begin with, Silver would have gotten out, curtly nodded goodnight, and shoved any and all feelings he might be feeling back down where no one could even think to search for them. He wasn't in anyone else's car though. He was in Gold's car. Gold's car seemingly coerced Silver into acting as if he wasn't Silver at all, but instead some weakling that actually allowed tears to escape from his eyes. Silver was past the denial stage, where he pretended that he had something in his eye (Seriously? That sorry excuse was even weaker than crying in the first place), and instead he had moved on to staring out the window as intently as he could manage. He couldn't let Gold see the liquid proof of his weakness. 

Gold wouldn't care, Silver tried to argue with himself. Silver's mind then had the audacity to try to tell him that the boy who was relentlessly talking in the background of Silver's thoughts would be able to help him. How could Gold help Silver though? He was just a careless clown who most likely associated himself with Silver purely for entertainment purposes. Afterall, someone who had as little social experience as Silver must be quite the interesting one to hang out around. Always messing up like the weakling he was.

It wasn’t really that Silver believed these things. He longed to break free from the words that his mind wouldn’t stop whispering to him. He wished that he could believe the boy who, with an overwhelming air of sophistication, constantly referred to him as a ‘bro.' He thought that if he could just ignore those evil thoughts that he might be able to accept the fact that someone truly desired his friendship. Thoughts that had been instilled in his head since he was a child - “No one wants to speak to you because you’re a worthless excuse for a human being” - were not thoughts that were going to be easily pushed away. When something is ever so consistently beaten into someone’s skull, they come to feel that those very thoughts are the truth. Silver knew this was what was happening in his case, yet he felt nonetheless that he really wasn’t worth the friendship of Gold. 

Silver didn’t realize how absorbed he was in both his thoughts and his intent window staring until he felt the gentlest poke possible on his shoulder, causing him to jump into overdrive. He spun around quickly. Any memories of his attempts to hide his face were forgotten as his fists raised slightly. They, naturally, lowered as he took in the face of the boy with the jet black hair, who had frozen the second he laid eyes on Silver. Gold’s mouth slowly took the form of a squashed ‘O.' It was as if he had lost all control of his jaw until he snapped it back into place to emit a single syllable. “Oh.” Gold’s jaw fell back into the ‘O’ shape, this time staying there only for a fraction of a second before opening and closing slightly. His eyes wildly darted around, never staying on SIlver for more than a split second, yet never staying away for any measurable time either. 

Silver hadn’t been aware of just how bad he must look. He could feel stickiness on his face from the tears he had failed to wipe away drying. Parts of his hair, which had been pressed up against his face as he rested his forehead on the window were slightly dampened by both the accumulation of tears and the sweat he didn’t know he was working up by struggling to keep his tears silent. He looked, to put it in simple terms, like a mess. A mess which consisted of a weak and worthless excuse for a human being. 

Silver looked around, noticing with a growing pit in his stomach that they were pulled up perpendicular to his driveway. He hadn’t meant to pass all of his time left in the presence of Gold by wallowing in his pitiful thoughts, but it seemed that he had. He diverted his eyes from Gold’s, which were now resting solely on him, as he was reaching around behind him for the door handle. As he opened it, he struggled to hide the amassing tears which he didn’t want to let fall. One blink and they were out in the open though.

“Silv,” Gold mumbled his name, reaching out to grab Silver’s hand as he scooted away, but Gold stopped his motion halfway once Silver’s eyes immediately darted towards it. Silver didn’t want to have to listen to Gold mumbling his name like that. He wanted the happy parts of friendship. The parts he didn’t deserve.

“T-Thanks,” Silver managed to force out a single word, which ended up sounding like more of a release of a sob than a word. He slid out the door which he had finally opened, wiping his eyes fruitlessly.

“Silver,” Gold said, opening his own door and stepping out. Silver didn’t want to have a scene though. He didn’t want to create a situation where raised voices would be a possibility. That would ensure that his presence was noticed, and he had hoped to sneak into the house and sleep away the tears. 

“Please,” Silver managed this word with at least a semblance of being composed. “Just go.” Silver longed to beg Gold of quite the opposite, but he didn’t want Gold to go home to an angry household. Silver knew from experience that that wasn’t a favorable situation. Gold didn't budge though. He didn't move any closer, or even attempt to speak again for quite a few seconds, which Silver might have noted as a record for the boy if not for the mood which was permeating their departure. Instead, he stared intently as Silver, almost as if he could see into his very being. 

When he finally spoke, his words seemed calculated, for once. "Silver, I know I don't know you well at all. In fact, I honestly thought you might have had some sort of mental disorder prior to today, always getting in fights. There's obviously something you're not quite telling me though. If you're not ready, that's fine. I'm not letting you leave though until you swear to me that you will be safe if I drive away." 

"I can't," Silver mumbled in return, refusing to meet Gold's eyes which ever so brilliantly matched his name - he could have sworn that he had seen a spark brighter than gold in those eyes when the boy was speaking. "I'll be fine though." Fine was a lot easier to swear by than safe. After all, he'd always been fine, no matter what had happened upon his return to his hellish household in the past. 

"You know I don't want to leave," Gold said quietly, not budging except to step around the car and stand in front of Silver, even after Silver had formed his own rickety sort of reassurance. 

Silver shook his head gently. He couldn't convince his mind to reveal his true desires to Gold and inform him that he didn't want to leave either, but he assumed that his 'bro' would understand that he didn't, despite his weakness. 

"Bros don't ditch bros," Gold said gently, without the lighthearted notion he usually addressed Silver as a bro in. He didn't even hold that carefree attitude as he reached up and gently poked Silver's cheek, careful to avoid hurting him this time. Silver longed for that happy, boisterous voice and broad smile, despite the fact that Gold ended up being way too loud for normal conversation once he got that excited. He longed to get upset at Gold, and yell at him for touching him, but instead, he simply allowed the finger to rest upon his cheek until he spoke once more, struggling to keep the tears from returning.

"It isn't ditching," Silver said keeping his words level despite the fact that his face was still puffy from his only recently curbed bout of crying. As Gold's finger dropped gently, Silver mumbled, "Don't get in trouble for staying out too late." Silver knew that the second he turned away, his tears would return, but he couldn't let it show in his words. "Goodnight, Gold." He raised his hand gently, giving it more of a shake than a wave, then turned around and approached the house which was the antithesis of Gold's welcoming household. 

 

It wasn't until after Silver had snuck around the side of the house and gently opened the side door that he heard Gold's car's engine purr back to life. Those headlights were still lighting up the road outside when Silver crept through a thankfully sleeping household and gently curled up on his bed. It wasn't until a few minutes later that he heard that car finally pull away. Silver wanted to cry again, but he couldn't bring himself to. After all, he promised Gold that he'd be okay. He was positive that the amber-eyed boy would look him straight in the eyes to say, "Bros don't break bro-promises," and to Silver, that sounded like quite the good reason for keeping his promise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading it. If you have any comments, please leave them below. Also, it would be pretty awesome if you guys could check out my profile and vote for me in a scholarship contest I have listed as well as check out the Grammarly referral link I have because both of those things would help me out and only take a couple of minutes at most!


	7. Good Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets a little intense at some points, so just beware of the pain and suffering before you begin reading :(

It was a common occurrence for Silver to hear others celebrating the magical wonderland of a day which they called Friday. Silver usually met those obstreperous and obnoxious classmates of his with a curl of his lip and a roll of his eyes. On good days, that is. If Silver was having a bad day? Well, those Friday worshippers were usually sent packing, whether it be because on those days he would be ever so obviously fuming (And his reputation preceded him), or whether it be because he resulted to violence before they had the sense to leave. It wasn’t that he  _ wanted  _ to hurt other people, but he had a reputation to keep up, and he found that the fights made him feel ever so slightly better about the fact that it was, in fact, that horrible day.

Silver was sure that if he were to explain to Gold that the day which was coming to an end were the best Friday he ever had, Gold himself would be one of those Friday worshippers. He could just  _ hear _ Gold’s upbeat voice saying something along the lines of, “But Friday is the best day of the entire week, Silv!” Silver couldn’t bring himself to be upset over that though, although not from lack of effort. Gold had everything he needed at home, so why wouldn’t he look forward to those days at the end of the week where he had nary a worry in the word - save for a few stray weekend assignments. 

Laying in bed at the end of a Friday though, hoping that he didn’t hear any movement in the house, Silver realized that he had seen a small glimpse of why so many look forward to those days. He had a dinner with friends, which would have been fun had Silver not been so high strung about it. He got to make a new friend, who he couldn’t stop thinking about for some reason. He even got to go to someone else’s house and experience what it felt like to be welcomed home with a warm dinner and an even warmer reception. 

If activities such as those were what everyone had to look forward to on most weekends, who was Silver to hate them? Life seemed as if it would be much more bearable if only he could partake in these things with Gold more often. Silver’s mind, on the other hand, seemed to be screaming at him that it was a one time thing and he better not get attached to the positive rush he felt when he was hanging out with Gold. Honestly, after all of Silver’s outbursts and near-assault moments, who would wish to accompany him for any further time? The only reason Gold even talked to him was because he thought they were in the same boat in detention. Even their so-called common ground was based on a lie since Silver had gotten detention intentionally. No one would want to spend time with someone who hurt others in order to get out of doing something mildly inconvenient. 

When did the tears come back? Silver wiped away at his face gently, careful not to move around too much, because he didn’t want to make too much noise. Crying definitely didn’t help, as he could feel his nose beginning to get runny. He couldn’t remember the last time he truly couldn’t help but dissolve into tears. Sure, he’d gotten so mad that his eyes watered a little, and there had been times when he let a couple tears escape some nights, but other than that, he had managed to find a way to take all of his emotions and convert them into anger, for better or for worse. It had worked for him for years, but as he was coming to realize, plans can never be set into stone once you add the variables of other people into the mix. 

Even just one slight change in the mix of his life and all of Silver’s views on the world seemed to be shifting out of focus. Maybe everyone in the world wasn’t a piece of shit. Silver truly wanted to believe that at least Gold was a decent human being, although Silver couldn’t quite put his finger on why his brain was so insistent on that fact. What was there to truly like about Gold? His energy? His quirky way of expressing that he liked someone? The piercing gold of his eye--- No. Silver chased that thought away with the same amount of menace that he would normally initiate a fight with. He began to stew in that menace, growing more and more towards the self-loathing side of his thoughts again, adding fuel to that fire until he slowly drifted off to sleep. Sleep filled with endless dreams over those same golden eyes. Why?

When he was dragged back into the world of the conscious by sunlight invading his eyes, Silver carefully sat up and groggily climbed out of bed. He leaned his head gently across the door, ensuring that his ear was pressed against it, and stood there, as still as could be for what would have seemed like hours to the impatient Gold. It was, in reality, only a few minutes. Upon being met with mere silence, Silver quickly dug a few items of clothing out of his dresser (Which only contained a few items of clothing to begin with), and slowly opened the door a crack. He couldn’t hold back a wince as the hinge creaked ever so slightly, but he didn’t pause, as that would only increase his chances of being caught, and he wanted this day to go as smoothly as possible.

Silver crept as fast as he could without making noise towards the side door. He didn’t have any particular destination in mind, but he knew that the best place to go was out of the house. It was early, based on the fact that the sun hadn’t yet been high in his window when he was awoken, so he knew he had to leave as soon as possible or he ran the risk of running into… unfavorable circumstances. He was still riding off of the high he had from the previous night though, so instead of sitting there and waiting for his day to turn to shit as he normally would, he decided to take things into his own hands.

What would make the day ideal would be if Silver could creep right on out of the house and over to Gold’s house, but that wasn’t an option. He didn’t have a phone or any mode of transportation, plus he wouldn’t be able to work up the nerve to just… walk up and knock on the door. Did people even do that in the technological day and age he was living in? He’d have to ask Gold at some point, if he got the chance. 

When Silver finally reached the kitchen door, which led out of one side of the house, he nearly let out a sigh of relief. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach that something bad was going to happen, because he’d had a happy night the night before, and up until now in his life, every happy moment seemed to indicate that his life was about to begin going down the drain in the near future. So, when he really wasn’t all too surprised when he heard a stone-cold yet still smooth voice ask, “Where do you think you’re headed off to?”

He spun around, struggling to keep the cold sweat he was suddenly breaking out into from changing his facial expression. He forced a slight smile across his set jaw,  hoping that the man standing in front of him was already drunk for the day. If he was intoxicated, he might be far enough gone that Silver would be able to just leave and walk away with few repercussions. “Good morning, father,” Silver’s voice shook slightly, causing him to wince at the perceived weakness in his voice. 

His father stared down at him for a moment before muttering, “Not with you here.” So he wasn’t drunk, or at least he was sober enough to bare his hatred for his son first thing. Silver took a step backwards ever so slowly, folding his arms behind his back in order to look less conspicuous as he began feeling for the doorknob. “Answer my question,” his father said, his voice grating on Silver’s very being. Why did he have to intrude on Silver’s one good morning?

“I have to go to school,” Silver said, staring at the floor as he spoke. He knew that his father wouldn’t buy that pathetic excuse on the weekend though, so he quietly mumbled onto the end, “For a project.” He knew if he just stepped out the door that he was leaning against that his father wouldn’t dare make a move against him. He was a respected man in the community they lived in, and he wouldn’t risk his reputation in order to accost what he considered to be trash.

Silver was not met with an immediate response. Instead, his father took a slow step closer, staring down at Silver the entire time as if he were a cockroach which needed to be stomped for invading his father’s personal space. Silver turned the doorknob behind him ever so slightly, but before he could open it, his father moved so quickly there wasn’t really anything he could do. Before he could even react, his shirt was pulling uncomfortably against his throat as his father grabbed a handful of it and pulled upwards violently. “Don’t lie to me,” he hissed at Silver, before tossing him back against the door. Silver slumped down to the floor after slamming his head on the door, but he stood up almost immediately, yanking the door open and stumbling onto the porch. His father watched as Silver hurried down the steps and towards the street, not even moving to say a single word before closing the door and locking it immediately. 

Silver could feel the tears beginning to return. Why did his feelings have to all come rushing back? Why couldn’t he have only happiness, and have the rest stay the numbness it was before? He didn’t want to feel anything for the man who created him, much less anger at himself for being worthless enough to warrant such hatred. He knew he looked a mess, limping slightly towards the street with his hair still a tangled mess and his wrinkled clothes that he slept in the night before, but it was better than staying in that house and ending up a battered and bruised mess. At least he was lucky enough to escape with only the wound where he slammed his head on the door this time.

Gold’s house was the first place which came to Silver’s mind. No matter that it was quite  a long walk to get there (And the fact that he didn’t know if he remembered 100% how to get back there), Silver felt that that was where he needed to go to spend his time. Any apprehensions about knocking on Gold’s door evaporated when he was caught. Anything he could do in order to set foot in that loving household would be what he would do. After all, a knock was a small price to pay for warmth and acceptance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long to get out. I'm not really in a good spot in life right now, so its been sort of hard to type. I got sick about a week and a half ago, and I haven't gotten better yet. I've just been miserably sick and also trying to complete schoolwork and type this... I went to the health center, and it turns out I only have a sinus infection, but my insurance only picked up part of the antibiotic price, and I have absolutely no money right now, so I can't afford to get the medicine to help me get better. Long story short, I have to wait out the infection and hope it doesn't spread T-T (Normally when I get sinus infections they spread to ear infections or bronchitis, so I'm really hoping this one stays tame, as I have no chance of medication.) Enough about me though! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. Make sure to leave a comment down below! They're my favorite part of posting new chapters


	8. Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh! So, sorry this took so long, but winter break has begun, so that means I'll most likely have tons of time to write! Hope to see more chapters out soon. I hope you guys enjoy this!

What Silver wasn’t counting on, however, was the fact that he had no clue how to get to Gold’s house. He knew the direction in which they drove from his house the first time, but he wasn’t exactly watching for every turn along the way. He was much more focused on… well… other things. His memory wasn’t exactly enhanced by the pain he felt every time he took a step. When he was knocked to the floor earlier, he must have landed on his knee the wrong way. So, as he limped down his street, Silver couldn’t help but think that he was, in fact, the king of making bad decisions. Where was he going to go? He didn’t know where Gold lived, he had no phone to call him, and he had managed to leave his backpack in his room when he attempted to sneak out. No form of contact whatsoever. Silver sighed, resisting the urge to slump down against the same lamppost that he slumped against the previous night. His father would be furious if one of the neighbors mentioned seeing him sitting on the sidewalk like some sort of hooligan. 

When Silver reached the end of the street, he knew he had to make some sort of decision on where to go. He paused for a minute, thinking only of how he was to get to Gold’s house when he realized - Blue. Blue would surely allow him into her home - she always had in the past. Silver set out, walking towards her house as if he had a purpose in life. He couldn’t move too fast, however, as he had a limp to mask. He couldn’t have anyone seeing him limping down the street and questioning him on it, after all. He didn’t want to have to explain that he was a delinquent who cared only for fighting people at school. He didn’t feel like lying for once in his life.

One thought kept resurfacing in Silver’s mind as he trudged along the walk he had made many times in the past. Maybe, just maybe, Blue would be able to call Gold for him. Gold would come to help him, right? Gold did, after all, insist on calling Silver his ‘bro,’ and that surely meant that they were friends enough to ask him for help.  Would he really want to hear from Silver so soon though? ( “I guess I’ll see you Monday, or whatever,” his own pitiful voice was recollected by his mind. “Sooner, if you want,” Gold’s much smoother voice had replied.) 

Silver  _ knew _ that he should just go to Blue’s house and rest there. He  _ knew _ that he shouldn’t go asking her if she had Gold’s phone number. He didn’t  _ want _ to call his obnoxious ‘bro.’ He didn’t  _ want _ to go stare at a TV screen displaying a game that made no sense with Gold. Why  _ would _ he want any of that? He shook those thoughts out of his head and kept walking towards Blue’s house, staring at his feet as he walked so as to not make eye contact with anyone who might recognize him by his hair.

When he arrived on his sister’s street, Silver began to wonder if he hadn’t made the wrong decision in going there. Sure, she’d definitely let him into her house, but she’d also attack him with questions about what happened. She was his sister, but he never told her just how bad his situation at home was. He didn’t want her to see him as the weakling he was. She had always suspected that his injuries weren’t really from his fights, but he’d never really told her much more than the fact that he didn’t like being around his dad. Silver sighed as he walked up to the door, after all, that was his pitiful excuse for his best friend - a friendship in which he couldn’t even confide the truth in.

Before he could even knock though, Silver saw the curtain in the front window flutter as if someone were peeking out. In the time which it took for him to be distracted by the tiny movement, the door was flung open and a girl with long, brown hair came flying out the door, barrelling into him. 

“Silver!” She exclaimed, wrapping her arms around him, squishing him awkwardly against her. He’d told her before that he really didn’t like being touched, but she never quite listened to him. He grew to be rather fond of her constantly breaking past his protests, however. After she hugged him for a few seconds, she took a step back, her hands still on his shoulders, to say, “What happened to your eye? I miss school for  _ one day _ and you show up here with a black eye?” 

“Got in a fight…” Silver’s words were mumbled. If only he could tell her something other than a lie that made him seem like he only wanted to hurt people. 

“Ugh, Silv, you need to stop with all the violence,” Blue rolled her eyes while she spoke, but a smile still graced her face. When Silver didn’t reply, only stared down at his feet, she dropped her arms from his shoulders in order to push his bangs out of his face. “You need to get a haircut,” she mumbled, but Silver couldn’t focus on her words. When she raised her hand to his face, all he could think about was the faint crescent mark that was no doubt still faintly visible on his face. He struggled to push the thought away, but his mind just kept thinking about poking Gold’s face on the way home the previous night. Why was it so squishy? 

Silver looked up at his sister who immediately reached for the bruise that dominated his face. “Oh, Silv,” she sighed, brushing a couple of fingers gently across it, “C’mon, I have some arnica inside. We’ll get you all fixed up.” Blue took his hand, leading him inside like a child. Silver sighed, but he couldn’t hold back the slight smile on his face. It was nice to know how a real family should work sometimes. He’d never had a house to go home to where he’d be taken care of.

“You’re being awfully quiet,” Blue said as she led him into the kitchen, motioning for him to sit while she ruffled through the cabinet to find a tube of arnica gel. “Something happen?”

“Not really,” Silver said quietly, yanking his hand away from where it was touching the spot on his cheek again. He needed to get his mind out of the damn gutter and focus on what was actually happening.

“Normally you would have snipped at me about touching so much by now. Spill the beans,” Blue walked over to him and began to apply the gel to his eye. He reflexively jerked backwards when she reached for his eye, so she wrapped an arm around the back of his head to hold him in place. As soon as her hand made even the slightest contact with the back of his head, however, Silver let out a muted hiss - he’d slammed his head against the door rather hard during the confrontation with his father.

“Oh jeez,” Blue said, pulling her hand away, “Normally you don’t come out of fights this rough. Did ya pick a fight with someone who was too much for you?” Blue finished up with the gel and as she left to go put it back in the cabinet, Silver spoke up.

“The fight didn’t give me that. I… fell.” He knew it sounded pitiful. It was obviously a cover-up, but knowing his sister, she wouldn’t push. She’d pushed in the past and Silver hadn’t handled it very well. Even the girl he was used to taking care of him was scared of the monster he had become.

“Well you need to be more careful then,” Blue spoke as if her words were matter of fact, but Silver could see her eyeing him out of the corner of her eyes as she walked to the fridge. “Guessing you didn’t have any breakfast,” she said, humming as she grabbed a carton of eggs. “So, you never spilled the beans, Silvy. What happened yesterday?” Blue smirked at Silver, who had been once again, dammit, feeling the little spot on his cheek and wondering whether or not his cheek was as soft as Gold’s.

“Nothing happened. I got out of that shithole of a pep rally by beating the crap out of some guy that made fun of my hair, and then I… went home.” Silver felt a pang of guilt in his heart for lying to his sister, but if he told her about going to lunch with Crys and Gold, then going back to Gold’s house… Well... She’d definitely blow it out of proportion. 

“I didn’t know you lived at Dairy Queen,” Blue said, her smirk growing wider. She spun around, her black dress billowing around her from the sudden motion and said, “You forget that Crys and I are friends, don’t you Silvy.” 

Silver hissed a muffled curse, refusing to meet Blue’s eyes. She might have let him spare her a few details if he would have just told her at first, but now that she knew that he was trying to hide it from her, she wouldn’t let a single detail escape from her grasp. Blue could make herself seem like an innocent teenage girl, but once it came down to something she wanted, that whole facade dropped and she could make anyone bow to her will.

“Details,” Blue said, tapping a finger on Silver’s nose as she walked back over to the fridge to grab something for the omelette she was cooking up. 

“Nothing really happened,” Silver mumbled, thinking over everything that really had happened, “They asked me to go eat with them for some reason, and I said that as long as there was food, I’d come along.” 

“Ugh, Silv,  _ please _ tell me you didn’t do that whole, ‘Only if you pay for my food’ thing again. I told you when you told me that the first time that that  _ wasn’t _ how you make friends,” Blue stared at Silver, tapping her foot as she waited for his answer. When an answer didn’t come, she threw her hands in the air and said, “When will you learn, Silvy. You have to charm them into getting you things, not demand it. Maybe learn a thing or two from your beautiful sister here.” Blue’s face was dominated by a smile despite the fact that she was berating Silver on his utter lack of social skills. 

Silver couldn’t help but snip back at her. After all, they  _ were _ siblings. “At least I don’t go around flaunting my body to get a free meal,” Silver said, a smirk crossing his lips. That smirk was immediately wiped off his face when Blue stormed over to him. His body began to tense up, and all he could do was keep telling his mind, ‘She’s not him. She’s not him.’ Blue seemed to notice that he grew tense, however, as instead of flicking him with the rag she was holding, she just rolled her eyes and went back to cooking, muttering about social skills and insulting a lady’s beauty. 

“Silver, you better keep giving me details if you’re going to insult me like that,” Blue kept her voice stern, but Silver knew that she wasn’t actually upset at him. They’d said worse things to each other in the past. 

“What details are there to give,” Silver said with a sigh. He didn’t know where to start, but he figured Blue did.

“Everything,” she said, helping not at all, “But start with the part where you stormed out of the Dairy Queen. That’s where Crys couldn’t fill me in anymore.” Blue smirked at Silver, whose face had begun to grow red as he thought of how pitiful he must have seemed for storming out over something so miniscule. 

“I stormed out, the idiot caught up with me and said he didn’t want me walking home, and I told him that he could drive me home if it really meant so much to him. He drove me home. End of story,” Silver didn’t want to divulge the details of his and Gold’s night just yet. For some reason, it felt… special. It felt like his own little piece of happiness in the world, and as selfish as it was, he didn’t want to share it with anyone - not even his sister. 

“Where’d that little mark on your face come from,” Blue said, nearly poking him in the cheek where Gold had, but Silver dodged her finger. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to feel anyone’s finger there but Gold’s…

“Gold,” Silver mumbled, tracing his finger across it again. “Idiot stabbed me with his fingernail.” 

“And you didn’t kill him? Wow Silvy, you’re making progress in the whole ‘Social Skills’ thing,” Blue plopped two plates down on the table and said, “Stop looking at me all grumpy. Lighten up and tell me just why the ‘idiot’ jabbed your cheek.” Blue smirked at Silver as she pushed a plate towards him. He struggled to not ravish the plate quickly, instead taking large, slow bites of the food. He wanted to look civilized, after all. 

“Nothing happened. Just a poke,” Silver said, feeling his cheek again. Blue opened her mouth to say something, but before she could speak Silver, staring intensely at the table so as to not make eye contact said, “Blue… How do I tell if he’s my friend?” He expected her to laugh and tease him about social skills. He didn’t expect her to actually sigh and take a moment to think it over.

“Silv, I think,” she said after deliberating for a few seconds, “I think if you have to ask that question, then he’s probably your friend. And it’s  _ okay _ to have friends Silv, so don’t get all huffy over that.” 

“Mmm,” Silver said, not really knowing what to say. He tested a glance up at his sister, who was staring at him and twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “Kind of… nice.” He finished up his omelette and, wanting something to do with his hands to occupy his mind, walked over to the sink and began to wash his plate and silverware.

“Wow, Silv, I’d never have guessed that having friends was a good thing. You see, I thought that everyone tried to make friends because secretly we all seek to be miserable. You  _ have  _ to tell someone about this revelation of yours.” Silver held back a smile at Blue’s sarcasm. “Seriously though,” she added on, much less sarcasm dripping from her voice, “I’ve been saying it for years and you’ve been all ‘friends won’t help me,’ or all ‘other people only lead to hurt.’ I’m not going to say I told you so, but…” Blue laughed as she walked over to him and began washing her own plate while he dried off his.

“He’s still an idiot,” Silver said, smiling as he thought of the idiot with the golden eyes. Friends… Didn’t have such a bad ring to it after all, he decided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, no Gold in this chapter, which I was sad about, but look at Silver over there, having feelings and everything. So grown up. I'll probably have the next one out tonight or tomorrow because I have a lot of time to spend doing nothing today :P


	9. My What?

“He actually got  _ you _ to play games?” Blue was beside herself with laughter.

“It wasn’t that fun,” Silver was being honest in his words, but for some reason, he still felt a longing to go back to those games with that boy… He wanted to ask Blue if that was just what being friends was like, but then again, he didn’t want her to laugh at him if he were some weird exception. She’d done it before, and she’d definitely do it again. 

“‘It wasn’t that fun’” Blue said in a high pitched, mocking voice, “You say as you smile like an idiot.” Silver huffed, crossing his arms and staring down at them. He was determined to curb his emotions. He wanted to shove them down inside of himself where she wouldn’t be able to see them and make fun of him. He wiped any hint of a smile off his face and forced it into the scowl it usually defaulted to. It was getting harder, he realized. 

“Pssh, don’t get all huffy,” Blue said, bending down so Silver couldn’t help but look at her as she spoke, like a mother bending over to speak to a child, he realized, “I’m not making fun of you, Silvy. It’s cute that you’re all happy about the fact that you have a friend.” Silver wanted to snap at her and make sure that she knew not to call him cute, but he held his tongue.

“Silvy, it’s not fun to tease you if you just sit there and ignore me,” Blue let out a huff of her own, flopping down in a chair.

“Don’t have much to say,” Silver replied, letting his thoughts drift once more towards Gold. Would it be out of place for him to ask Blue to let him text Gold? Did she even have his number to begin with? Did he  _ want _ her to have his number? After all, Gold  _ had _ said that he thought she was pretty. He didn’t want Gold close to Blue. He wanted Gold all to hims-- No. No, Silver struggled to redirect his derailed thoughts.

“There you go with that smile again,” Blue purred, brandishing a smile of her own. It wasn’t very often that she got to see Silver happy, and she considered him to be her little brother just as much as he considered her to be his sister. It was nice to see him so happy with his new friend.

“Shut up,” Silver snapped, but he didn’t get rid of his smile. It was weaker to fight a losing fight than it was to give up something he knew that he could never win against, and having Gol-- having a friend might just be too much to keep inside. No matter how embarrassing it was that he couldn’t revert to his typical demeanor. 

“Of all people,” Blue said, completely ignoring Silver’s words, “I’m just surprised that it was  _ Gold _ who broke through your defenses. I mean, you’re right, he is kind of an idiot.” 

Despite the fact that Silver himself said that Gold was an idiot multiple times (And he meant it too), he felt a surge of resentment course through his veins as Blue stated it. He didn’t want her to insult Gold. “He’s nice,” Silver blurted out, immediately regretting his mistake as Blue pounced on his words. 

“Aww, look at little Silvy, realizing that being nice to people is a good way to make them like you. You and your little friend are so cute together, with your matching names and opposing personalities. It’s like it was meant to be,” Blue cooed, laughing until she had to take in deep, raking breaths to restore her needed supply of air. 

“Whatever,” Silver muttered, struggling to keep his mind on topic, “Can we, maybe, talk about something else?” 

“But this is  _ sooo _ much fun,” Blue pouted. She did, however, relent when Silver chose to not say a word to her afterwards. “ _ Fiiine _ ,” she groaned, “Why’d you come here in the first place?”

“Needed you,” Silver replied, staring down at the table. He didn’t want to have to lie to his sister. Lies were what he had to tell when someone asked about his life at home though, so he knew he would have to.

“What for?” She asked, not breaking her attempted eye contact with Silver. He refused to meet her eye though, so it resulted in Blue staring at Silver while he stared at the table.

Silver wished he had a reason for coming to her house other than the fact that he knew he couldn’t stay at home. He needed a reason that sounded convincing. Coming up with lies for why he needed her at random times was getting harder and harder. He couldn’t default to needing help on homework, as he forgot his bag at home. He supposed he could just tell her that he didn’t really want to be alone, but she’d probably tease him in one way or another for that. It wasn’t until she reiterated her query that Silver began to get desperate. So, in his desperation, Silver spat out the first thing that came to mind. 

“I needed to ask if I could use your phone.” 

The thought had crossed his mind, after all, so it wasn’t even entirely a lie. He smiled slightly, knowing that he wasn’t betraying her with a full lie. It felt good to have an actual excuse for coming to see her, other than needing her to help him with the wounds he didn’t actually cause himself by getting into fights. She was always ready to help him, which made him feel even worse about lying to her for so long. It just wasn’t easy for him to tell her at first, then as time passed, he felt as if he’d been lying too long to go in depth. She worried about him too much as things were. He was, however, determined to not let it get to that point with Gold. 

“For Gold?” Blue couldn’t decide if she wanted to celebrate Silver’s new friendship or question the level of attachment he had with someone he barely knew. 

Silver stared down at the table, not meeting Blue’s eyes when he answered, “Yeah…” He thought she’d laugh at him. He figured she’d tease him and tell him that he needed to get over Gold. Instead, she handed him her phone, already opened to a contact labeled with the name of the one Silver wanted to speak to.

There were already a few texts shown on the screen. Surprisingly enough, the past contents of the phone lessened Silver’s fear of texting Gold that he didn’t know was building up.

He smiled as he read,

“When r u coming over?”

“Driving now”

“Idiot”

“If I die no more school.”

“Dont die, u need to help me on this project.”

“Whatever.” 

Silver’d never really texted anyone before, and seeing the lax nature of how the two had messaged each other, he felt as if he’d be forgiven for any mistakes me made. After all, Blue typed some of her words as just letters, so he figured he could at least do better than that. Silver focused in on the phone, typing out a message that he thought would be good enough to send. When he was ready, he glanced up at Blue and tentatively said, “Is this okay?”

“Lemme see,” she replied, snatching the phone out of Silver’s hand. She snickered as she read it and promptly said, “Silv, this is a text, not an essay. Short and sweet, not long and proper. Also, how sweet that you need him to save you from me, but you never truly escape.”

“I-I wasn’t trying to escape,” Silver stuttered, grabbing the phone and reading over the message. When he typed it, it felt as if it flowed and made perfect sense in a conversation. Reading it again it felt… mechanical. 

“You need poor Gold to come rescue you from your sister,” Blue faked a sigh as Silver typed out a new message, this time just handing it to Blue wordlessly. She clicked a few buttons and then said, “Bam, sent.” Before Silver could even grab the phone back to see what she had done to the message before sending it, her phone buzzed and lit up.

“Looks like Goldy was just sitting by his phone waiting for me to text him. Must have been a disappointment to get a message from a brooding teenage boy instead of a beautiful lady like myself.” Blue slid the phone across the table to Silver, who only fumbled around with it for a few seconds before figuring out how to open the message, thank you very much.

“Hey, bro. Cant get enough of me i see. Be there in five.” It was short, but it made Silver’s face break out into a smile he couldn’t contain. Blue took the phone back out of his hands, but he didn’t really care. Gold was coming to get him. 

“Aww, how sweet. Your little boyfriend is coming to snatch you up,” Blue cooed. Silver’s attention snapped to Blue the second she said that. No longer were his thoughts caught up on Gold or the fact that they were going to be able to hang out. 

“Blue,” Silver growled, warning her of the fact that her joking around had gone way too far.

“Aww, don’t get all upset. All I’m saying is you two are so cute together.” Blue fluttered her eyes at Silver, but she obviously knew that she was testing Silver’s patience.

“Blue, he’s an idiot,” Silver mumbled. He wanted to scream at her that he was just friends with Gold. That he’d never stoop to that level. That he wasn’t  _ gay _ . But he couldn’t really find the words to confront her. Instead, he found himself staring down at the table and letting his mind once more drift to Gold. There was something wrong with him, he decided, but it couldn’t be what Blue was hinting at. It just couldn’t. His thoughts were pulled back to reality, however, when he heard a knock at the door. Taking any excuse he could to escape from Blue’s teasing words, he hopped up immediately, practically dashing to open the door for Gold.

“Hey, Silv,” Gold said, grinning at the shorter redhead. “Don’t look so upset to see me.” Silver hadn’t realized just how much shorter than Gold he was until he swung open the door to stare into the boy’s chest. 

“I’m not,” Silver said, darting his eyes up to Gold’s face, not daring to let them lock onto his amber eyes. Once he saw Gold staring down at him though, Silver let his eyes drop back down to Gold’s chest. He became increasingly aware of just how awkward it was to put his eyes well… anywhere. 

“Silver, it’s a joke,” Gold said, reaching forward as if to touch Silver’s head. Silver instinctively pulled it away, ducking under his hand. “Riiight,” Gold said, scratching the back of his head, “I don’t mean… I just… Accidents, right?” Gold walked into the house, causing Blue to huff and mutter something that Silver didn’t quite hear. He almost wished that Gold  _ had _ patted him on the head. Yes. Something was wrong with him, he just couldn’t figure out what it was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas guys! I should have another out soon. I'm thinking about taking a few requests for Christmas, so if you have any stories you've always wanted to see written (Oneshots most likely would be what I write), shoot me an email (My email is listed on my profile!) or just comment below. I'm also planning on writing another chapter tonight, and if I don't write it tonight, I'll do three next time I post one.


	10. Second Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!

“Why do you insist that this is food?” Silver grumbled as he popped a cheese curd in his mouth. 

“Because it’s the institution that perfectly embodies teenagers. Run down, not of the best quality, but still perfectly lovable,” Gold said, slurping a large sip of his milkshake. 

“As if teenagers are lovable,” Silver scoffed. He didn’t want to complain too much though, because he felt like if he exploded one more time in the god forsaken restaurant that he might be seen as some sort of timebomb by Gold. He didn’t want to be seen as anything but… Silver. He wanted Gold to see him as a friend as much as he saw Gold as a friend. Sure, Gold had plenty of other friends, so he would never really think about Silver nearly as much as Silver thought about him. Still though, friends…

“I think that this one is perfectly loveable,” Blue said, plopping her purse on the table next to Silver as she returned from the restroom. “After all, he bought both of us lunch Silvy.” 

“Thanks babe,” Gold said, winking at Blue, who shook her head at him. Silver’s stomach lurched. Probably because he didn’t want his only friend flirting with his sister. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Silver’s thoughts were interrupted when Gold turned towards him and said, “How come she gets to call you Silvy but I can’t?”

Silver stared at him, hoping that anything he hoped to say was conveyed enough through that stare. He really didn’t know what he was supposed to say to Gold. After all, he didn’t really like it when anyone called him Silvy. It was what  _ he  _ called Silver when he was younger. It was a nickname that he correlated much too closely with pain. 

“I get to call him whatever I want because he’s my little brother, and you’re just his cru--” Blue closed her mouth immediately when Silver stepped on her foot rather aggressively under the table. “You’re just his  _ friend _ .” Her voice was strained as she glanced at Silver, smirking, but not pushing to tease him too much. 

“No, I’m his  _ bro _ ,” Gold said, emphasizing the fact by leaning forward and poking Silver on the cheek. Silver’s hand shot up to feel it immediately, but he tried to play it off as just scratching his face. Based on the stare he was getting from Blue, she caught on to the fact that it was much more than a simple poke to the face.

“Well, that’s wrong in more ways than one,” Blue said, smirking as Silver gaped at her. She was just blatantly implying all these weird things that were going to scare Gold off.

“Shut up,” Silver said, feeling his face heat up. (Why did the part that Gold poked feel especially hot?)

“Aww, we’re just joking around, Silvy,” Blue purred, patting him on the head. Silver couldn’t help but notice that, as she patted his head, Gold’s eyes traced her hand from his head back down to her side. Silver couldn’t discern why Gold was so intent on watching Blue’s every move around him. 

Silver felt rather at home for once in his life sitting across from the boy with the amber eyes and next to his sister. Two people in the world that seemed to care about him enough to not even notice when he didn’t understand social norms. They didn’t seem to care when he couldn’t think of anything to say or couldn’t think of the right words to finish his sentence. To Silver, that small bit of acceptance was like his own slice of heaven. By the time they walked out of the dinky little restaurant, Blue still sipping on her milkshake, Silver felt like he might just be living a normal life. For once, instead of dreading the next second constantly, his mind wasn’t on the future. It wasn’t lingering on what would happen when alll the fun was gone and instead he was able to live in the moment. Quite the moment it was too.

“C’mon Silv, I’ll take you home,” Blue said as they walked out to the parking lot, jingling her keys.

Either Gold saw Silver stiffen up or he just knew from the previous night that something was amiss with Silver going home, but he immediately chimed in, “Blue, I’ll take him home. Y’know how it goes. Bring home someone who looks like they get good grades and the mum’s all ‘When’s that nice boy coming over again’ and ‘Maybe if you spend more time with him and Crys and less time on sports, you’d have better grades.’ Damn lady thinks that my friends will make me a better person. If anything, I’m going to end up corrupting you guys.”

“Hon, you can’t corrupt something that’s already corrupted,” Blue said, winking at Gold. “You better get him home safely after you take him home with you. I’ve seen you drive.”

“You’ve never been in the car with me! I’m a safe driver,” Gold made a pouty face at Blue, who immediately put her hands on her hips and stared him down.

“Yeah, but I’ve seen you driving from pictures you post on instagram. If there are pictures of you driving on your timeline, then you aren’t a good driver. Good drivers don’t selfie and drive,” Blue waved goodbye as Gold shook his head and hopped in the car, and she said, “Be careful with him.” 

“I’ll be careful with him, but you can’t blame me if I’m rough,” Gold waggled his eyebrows at Blue, but Silver didn’t really get it. He didn’t want to get in a fight with Gold, and it wasn’t too great to think about Gold getting in any sort of fight.

“Bye guys!” Blue chimed, walking over to her own car. Silver didn’t really know what to say, so instead of calling out to her, he just waved half-heartedly as she walked away. He climbed into the passenger side of the car, immediately buckling up. Blue was right, Gold was  _ not _ a good driver in the slightest.

Gold didn’t force conversation as he started up the car and began driving towards his house. He didn’t say anything until they’d been driving for a few minutes and he quietly said, “Wanna tell me what’s up?” Silver let his eyes focus, instead of on the terrain outside the window, on the reflection of Gold in the window. It was easier to stare at him if Gold didn’t know it was happening. It felt less awkward than making eye contact for too long for real.

“Nothing’s up,” Silver said quietly, not taking his eyes off of window-Gold, who turned to look straight at him instead of the road. 

“You go home upset last night and show up first thing in the morning at your sister’s house, texting me for help? Silv, I might be stupid, but I’m not dense. Something’s up, and you can trust me with that shit, y’know? I’m not a snitch.” 

“I just… wanted a friend.” It was not the whole truth, but it was definitely a partial truth, and that was a step forward for Silver.

“You… What… Wait…” Gold began to stutter, trailing off after each word. “Friends?” He finally settled on asking Silver a single word question. It was hard for Silver to answer, even if he knew what he wanted to say, so instead he just nodded, hoping that Gold was able to steal a glance at him for long enough to see it. 

“We’ll talk about why when we’re not driving, okay?” Gold’s voice went from startled to stern in an instant, putting Silver rather on edge. His father used stern voices rather well to instill fear into Silver, and Silver wished not to relive those memories. 

“Okay…” Silver didn’t see any reason to fight against the onslaught of care he knew he’d no doubt feel every time he wanted into Gold’s house.

As they pulled into the driveway, Gold turned to him grinning and said, “If home sucks, this can be your second home, okay Bro?”


	11. Worthless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was hard to write. Such emotional boys... Also, although I read over it before posting, it hasn't been edited too much because I couldnt really edit the raw emotion parts... Sorry if they ramble on too much.

“Welcome home, Gold,” Silver heard a voice ring out from the kitchen the moment they stepped inside and the smell of food wafted into his nose. Even though they had only just eaten lunch, Silver found himself nearly salivating at the thought of Gold’s mom’s cooking. “Oh, and hello, Silver.” She smiled at him instead of questioning why he dared barge into her house uninvited. Normal families were so… nice. 

“Silv’s gonna chill for a bit, kay mom?” Gold’s words seemed to be more of a statement than a question, as he flung his bag down on the couch and walked towards the stairs, pulling Silver by merely moving with determination. No physical contact was necessary to send Silver scurrying after Gold once he had fumbled through a greeting for Gold’s mother. 

“If I come upstairs, you better have cleaned your room, young man,” Gold’s mom called out as they climbed the stairs. Silver glanced up at Gold, who was a few steps ahead due to both his head start and his longer legs. Did he really have to skip stairs going up a single flight? It seemed like a bit much. Maybe he just wanted to flaunt the fact that he was taller than Silver? No, Silver thought, he needed to stop thinking that. Gold was his friend, not someone trying to make him feel worth less than average. 

“Of course I did, mom, what kind of godless heathen do you think I am? I wouldn’t  _ dare _ bring a friend into my messy room,” Gold then, turning to Silver, practically whispered, “If we hear her coming upstairs, do me a solid and help me shove all my stuff under my bed, kay? Haven’t cleaned up in there in forever.” Silver couldn’t help but crack a smile at the amber-eyed boy, despite the fact that his mind kept trying to think of what would happen to him if he left his room a mess. 

“Your house is nice,” Silver said quietly to Gold, who began throwing dirty clothes off of the chairs in his room once they walked in. Silver stood next to him, wanting to help, but also not wanting to get in the way. Would it be weird if he were to help move the dirty clothes, or would that be considered gross? He reached a hand out, but instead of actually doing anything to help, it mechanically froze up, not quite extending all the way, but not staying close enough to his body to be unnoticeable. Why did his body have to hate him? Silver fought against his frozen limb, willing it to fall lifelessly back to his side. Guess helping would have to wait for the code-red of Gold’s mother coming upstairs…

“Make yourself at home,” Gold plopped down into one of the two chairs that had previously been coated in a layer of dirty clothes. (How, if Silver had been over just the night before, had Gold’s room gotten so messy?) If he had noticed Silver’s freeze up, he neglected to mention it. 

Silver, in an attempt to make himself at home, perched on the edge of the seat and just sort of sat there. He tried to make eye contact with Gold, but his eyes were just too piercing. Silver felt like if he looked into them for too long, Gold might be able to read his mind and see into his thoughts. Stupid, he knew, but it didn’t change the fact that that he felt like he’d drown in them if he looked for too long. 

“Silver,” Gold’s voice held the hint of sternness that it possessed earlier, putting Silver further on edge. He didn’t want to have this conversation with Gold. He wanted to do normal teenager things. He wanted to do things he would scoff at merely days ago - things he thought were trivial and meaningless. He didn’t want to have to discuss all that troubled him, and he  _ really _ didn’t want to burden Gold with the weight of his past. Gold was just naturally so happy that Silver felt it a crime to weigh him down with his stupid, worthless life and the problems that he practically caused himself by living said worthless life. “We need to talk about whatever it is that’s got you so on edge.”

“I’m not on edge,” Silver replied, whilst sitting on the edge of his seat, eyes darting around the room and thoughts darting back and forth between ways to get out of this conversation and just pouring his soul out to Gold. He most definitely wasn’t on edge.

Gold actually, and this hurt, he actually laughed at Silver saying that. It wasn’t a huge belly laugh, but it definitely was a chuckle, and that chuckle stung. He knew it. He knew that Gold only wanted the information to better hurt Silver in the end. What had he been thinking? Would someone like Gold really want to be friends with someone like Silver? No one really wanted to be friends with him. Blue was just stuck with him to the point where she couldn’t escape and Gold needed the information to do… well… whatever it is people do with information on other people. Silver stood up, but he wasn’t sure where he could go. He didn’t want to go home. His father might notice that all his strength was drained, and then he would know that whatever it was that fueled Silver’s outburst, it had been put right, and Silver was back to being the meek, cowardly excuse for a human that he had always been. 

“Silver?” Gold’s voice sounded as if it were miles away. Silver needed to move. He needed to walk out of the house and walk back into his old monotonous life. He needed to shake himself free of the false hope he had been letting himself feel and, instead, force himself to live the life he had previously accepted. He’d go home, get beaten up, go to school, beat others up, and live a life with no one to care that that was how things were. That  _ was _ his plan, after all, so why should someone who obviously wanted to hurt him come in the middle of it?

“Silver, what’s going on? Do you need something? I’ll uhhh, go get a glass of water or something,” Gold’s voice floated into Silver’s ears. He sounded almost frantic. Great, now he was back to pretending to care. He walked out of the room, but Silver didn’t really notice. He didn’t even really notice the fact that he was pacing around the room. The only thing he could really pay much attention to was the voice raging in his head about how he was worthless and the only reason anyone would pay any positive attention to him was so they could manipulate him. 

Even when Gold came back with his promised cup of water and a concerned look on his face, Silver couldn’t really focus on him. He took the cup with a shaking hand and tentatively sipped at the water. He felt a slight brush at his shoulder, but he couldn’t bring himself to push it away. He couldn’t really place what it was, so it wasn’t important to him. Nothing should be important to him, the voice in his head raged, because he himself wasn’t important. And if he wasn’t important, why should he hold anything dear?

“Silver, your hands are shaking,” Gold’s voice said. No,  _ Gold _ said. Silver hadn’t realized that his hands were shaking until Gold spoke those words. He glanced down at the hand holding the glass, and sure enough, the ice cubes were jingling incessantly against the side of the glass, fighting to get out with every tremor. However, he wasn’t able to focus on the shaking of his hands once he looked down at them, because he realized that the pressure on his shoulder was from the hand of Gold, pressed firmly onto his body. He quickly took a few steps back, glaring, or at least attempting to glare at the offending boy. The whole world seemed almost blurred though. The only world that seemed real was the world the angry voice in his head was telling him of. It was his father’s voice, Silver realized, not his own. That didn’t change the fact that he too believed the words it was speaking. 

“Just, c’mon, sit down.” Gold reached out as if he were going to get Silver to listen to him by touching him. Silver didn’t want anyone else’s hands on him. It was a positively vile feeling. He took a few more steps back, not quite able to sense his surroundings in the blurring world around him. He felt something touch his back as he was backing up, immediately spinning around, causing the world to blur even further. It was only the wall. It was only the wall, but the boy was still standing within arms reach of him, Silver turned around to face Gold, slowly this time, but it didn’t change the fact that the world kept blurring and he was growing light headed. He felt like he needed to rest, but he really needed to escape. Rest would do him no good until he was in a place where he wasn’t being manipulated by someone claiming to care about him. 

“Silver, uhhh, I’m going to get my mom. She took a few nursing classes once and yeah, uhh, I’ll be right back.” Gold acted as if he were going to get help, but Silver knew that he was just going to make things worse with his pretend help.

“Don’t,” Silver managed to choke out. His voice sounded alien, almost foreign to him. He was growing more accustomed to the angry voice that he couldn’t get out of his head, calling him worthless. He was worthless. 

“Just, calm down, okay bro?” The idiot called him bro, but did he really mean any of it at all? Silver must have been easy prey, being as desperate as he was for someone to actually care about someone as worthless as he was. He’d fallen for such a blatant lie, and he’d believed it for too long. Even if it had only been a little less than two days, that was still way too long. Silver had known since he was small that no one would ever be able to care about him, so why did he let himself be swept off his feet so easily? He tried to take another step back, but he was, of course, met with the wall he was leaning on. He was not only worthless, but also stupid it seemed. Great, just what he needed to know. The world kept growing blurrier, as if he were looking at it through a magnifying glass, but not holding that magnifying glass up to anything in particular. He felt his knees buckle and he slid into a crouching position down the wall. He needed to escape, but instead he was practically laying on the floor. 

“Sitting is probably best in, ummm, this situation. Yeah, I think sitting is what should be best, right?” There he went again, patronizing Silver with his false pity. Silver didn’t know when he had closed his eyes, but he noticed that they were closed when, instead of seeing it, felt a pressure to his side as the boy he had almost trusted plopped down next to him. He wanted to scoot away, but he couldn't really convince his useless body to do much of anything anymore. It just wanted to sit there and be as worthless as he was.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Silv,” Gold’s voice sounded distant, or maybe it was just the fact that Gold himself sounded torn apart. Good. Served him ri--- No. No. Gold… Torn apart, what had he done? Silver hadn’t meant to upset Gold… But wait, hadn’t Gold been out to get him? But why would he? What would he gain from that? But what would he gain from being nice to someone as worthless as Silver either? None of it made sense, and Silver’s brain couldn’t really wrap around any of it.

“Not your fault,” his mouth spoke words that he wasn’t sure he believed. Then again, it was probably his fault, what with how much he fucked up everything he touched. His words were probably true, which felt at least partially better in his pitch black, shaky world. “Mine,” he muttered, this time completely meaning to. It was, after all, much more likely that whatever it was was his fault. He was known for causing issues for everyone around him. 

“No, it’s not. It’s okay, Silv.” He felt something gently brush down his back, but instead of lashing out at the boy (Gold, it was not just anyone. It was Gold.), he sort of melted into the touch. What was he thinking? Gold wouldn’t hurt him… Gold wouldn’t do anything to make him upset… He was still worthless though, so why would Gold want to be friends with him? He didn’t mean anything to the world, so why should he mean anything to Gold?  _ Did _ he mean anything to Gold? 

Silver felt heat on his face, followed by the cool of the air of the room. Great, just what he needed. A show of just how pitifully worthless he was. “Shhh, it’s okay,” the hand once more ran down his back. Why was the boy (Not just the boy,  _ the  _ boy… Gold…) still sitting next to him? There he was, crouching on the floor, twisted up in his twisted thoughts, eyes clenched shut and head dizzy, crying on the floor, yet Gold sat next to him, just rubbing his back… 

“I’m scared…” Silver muttered. He didn’t want Gold to know. Gold couldn’t know how weak he was… But he had to… Silver had to get his thoughts off his chest, just to get them out in the open. The hand on his back acted as if it were sucking away the thoughts in his head, leaving him instead with a brief feeling of contentment followed by waves of fear at how he was acting in front of his one friend. 

“Of what, Silv? It’s okay, I’m here…” Gold’s voice sounded distraught, but Silver wanted it to sound peppy. He wanted to hear Gold going on and on about some stupid game, calling him bro and not quite leaving room for conversation. Solemn just didn’t fit right on Gold. 

“Myself.” It was the truth. For all that Silver tried to not be a coward, he wasn’t scared of what had actually hurt him. He wasn’t scared of being beaten. He wasn’t scared of the man who had inflicted all the pain on him. Instead, he was cowering in Gold’s room, cowering not from an actual harmful entity, but instead cowering under the weight of his own mind. He feared not the man in the house he had to go home to, but instead the house itself, and that, Silver felt, made him even more of a coward than if he were to fear what was actually harmful.

“Sometimes it happens,” Gold said, instead of laughing at Silver’s stupidity. “I think there’s some famous quote about our worst enemies being our own minds, but I can’t really think of it. Whatever it is, I think that maybe you won’t have to be as scared of yourself when you realize that you really do have someone here who cares about you Silv. Don’t worry about whatever it is that’s been bothering you. It’s not important to talk about if it’s going to stress you out, okay?” Gold stood up, but in doing such, he removed his hand from it’s comforting position in the small of Silver’s back. He’d stopped rubbing up and down Silver’s back while he spoke, but for once in his life, Silver wanted that pressure on his body of someone else touching him. With Gold, it wasn’t quite as vile. Instead, it was almost… pleasant. 

“W-Wait,” Silver stared down at the floor, his hair cascading around his face, “Y-Your hand… It was…” Silver trailed off, not able to really articulate what he wanted. It’d be weird to ask his friend to put his hand back on his back, but it was what Silver wanted… He didn’t want Gold to think he was weird though, so he figured that he just wouldn’t ask.

“Oh, yeah… I’m sorry, Silv. I know you don’t like to be touched, it’s just like… I didn’t know what to do and you were sort of panicking…” Gold normally was the one who knew what to say. He confidently strode through his sentences leaving Silver behind to try and put together the remnants of his confidence into a somewhat coherent statement. Silver wanted to be the one who had the confidence for once, but he didn’t really have any semblance of what he needed to be able to.

So, instead of taking the initiative like Gold normally did, Silver just did his best to speak clearly when he said, “It was nice.” He couldn’t quite look Gold in the eyes (Those eyes that he swore he could just fall into…), but he got his words out and that in itself was a worthy accomplishment. 

Gold grinned at him, and instead of helping him up or commenting on Silver’s awkwardness he just sat back down next to Silver, poked him in the face gently, and began to rub his back. “My mom used to sit next to me when I was upset as a kid and she’d just rub circles on my back until I calmed down. It was all I could think of when you started to panic.” 

“I never really knew my mom,” Silver muttered. He didn’t mean to startle Gold with his mutterings. He didn’t even hold any bitterness in his words. It was his father he resented, not his mother for dying. Gold, on the other hand, seemed to think it a rather big deal.

“Silver… I’m sorry, bro.  That must be hard, living with just your dad and you. At least you guys must be close… I didn’t know that was why you didn’t like home too much.” Gold filled in too many blanks on his own, but Silver didn’t have the heart to tell him the full truth.

“Not close with my dad at all. He.... didn’t take her death well.” Gold, as if sensing that Silver didn’t really want to talk about it, picked up with his back rubs again, and Silver just sort of accepted the trance like bliss that came along with it. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything until you feel comfortable saying it, Silv.” Gold smiled at him, and Silver honestly couldn’t have stopped himself from smiling back. After all, even if all of his thoughts  _ were _ true, and he was worthless, Gold didn’t seem to care at all. And that was something special. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might not have the next one out for a little while because I have to find some way to make the last couple of hundred dollars to pay for my meal plan this semester before school starts back up. If anyone has a spare dollar, anything is appreciated, but don't feel pressured by any means. Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoy this! Sorry that this chapter was sort of depressing.


	12. Heartbeat

When Silver woke up, his first thought was that he needed to get out of his house as soon as possible, before the day really began. However, that thought was burst the second he really took in his surroundings. Popcorn ceiling? Dark blue walls? A bed that was actually comfortable? Where in the hell was he? It took only a few seconds of glancing around to remember that he had gone over to Gold’s house.

  
He had gone over to Gold’s house and he had embarrassed himself like the fool he was. No! Silver physically shook his head as he told himself that he couldn’t think like that. He didn’t mean to be so quick in his movements, or even to really make any physical gesture that he was arguing with himself. He did though, and it immediately caused Gold to notice him.

  
“Hey Silv," Gold's voice was quick to escape his mouth. He sounded like, for some reason, he was happy to see Silver, "You fell asleep on the floor so I put you on the bed because I figured you wouldn’t wanna like, sleep on the floor or anything, right?” Gold’s body seemed slightly tensed, and instead of leaning in towards Silver like he normally would when he talked, he was leaning backwards - only a little, but still. Did he really expect Silver to be that upset about moving him to the bed?

  
“I’m sorry,” Silver immediately muttered, glaring down at his hands, which had formed themselves into tight little balls without him noticing. He only noticed the pain in his palms from his fingernails digging in after seeing that he was so tensed up. He needed to calm down. It was Gold. Gold was okay, and Gold would never hurt him. But how could Silver know that if he was asleep?

  
“Silv, bro, don’t apologize,” Gold said, his shoulders lowering and his body losing tension. It was like he deflated slightly, but Silver knew that it wasn’t in a bad way. “I’m just worried is all, okay? People don’t normally just… do this for no reason. And I know I’m not like, the best guy to talk to, but I’m worried about you is all, bro. Okay?” Gold threw that smile across his face, that beautiful lopsided smile, but it just didn’t shine as bright as it usually did. Silver could tell that Gold was forcing himself to be upbeat about this, and just the fact that he had to force himself made Silver want to crawl inside of himself and never come out. He wanted to bury every emotion he ever felt deeper so that he wouldn’t have to make the boy who was usually all smiles end up frowning again.

  
He knew that burying everything would end up backfiring, however. It already sort of did, honestly. If he had ever let Blue know what was going on, he probably wouldn’t end up being so broken as a person. But he couldn’t put that weight upon her shoulders, and he definitely couldn’t dump it all on Gold’s shoulders. He had to try to at least give Gold…. something, though.

  
“I…” Silver took a deep breath, forcing his mind to focus only on what he wanted to say. If he tried hard enough, he could tune out the thoughts that everything he said would either be used against him or make Gold hate him. “I just… have a hard time with, well, like,” Silver winced at his words. He sounded like some teenage girl trying to talk about a celebrity. “Basically everything,” Silver spat out, trying his damnedest to not let himself think of how weak he was.

  
“Shit,” Gold ran his hands through his hair, pushing his spiky bangs back out of his face slightly. “Silver, I have to be completely serious with you here, okay?” Silver cringed at that. He knew that saying anything would make Gold want to be away from him. Who would want a broken friend?

  
“Okay,” Silver said, pushing the blankets off of his body and turning so his legs dangled over the edge of the bed. No point in staying comfortable considering he was about to be asked to leave and never come back.

  
“I know that there’s more that you’re not telling me, and I understand not wanting to tell me,” Gold went to take a breath, but then quickly spit out, “Not that anything is wrong with not telling me by the way, it’s fine, okay?” He took a deep breath and continued, “I’m always here to talk, and it isn’t a bother or a problem to me at all. We’re bros, Silv. But since I’m getting the feel that this isn’t the type of conversation you’re looking for right now, would you like to just… play games and have fun?” Gold grinned at him, this time that grin didn’t seem forced. It was just… a grin. Silver felt like he was honored to be on the receiving end of something so utterly genuine. He didn’t deserve a friend like Gold.

  
“I’d really like that,” Silver replied. His voice was sounding more and more like his own. He raised a hand, barely even shaking, and pushed his hair out of his face. He stood up, gingerly stepped over the cords that connected to Gold’s game system, and plopped down on the chair that was next to Gold’s own chair.  
“Since I know you don’t know any of the games, I won’t ask what you want to play,” Gold chuckled a little, getting up to look through his pile of games. Silver sort of did want to play something in particular though. He couldn’t remember the name, but he really enjoyed Gold laughing at how bad he was at the game they played last time.

  
“Can we… Can we play the game from last time?” Silver was surprised that he actually spoke up so easily. His voice was steady, but it was obvious that he had been freaking out earlier, because his voice was slightly raspy. It always got that edge to it after he cried.

  
“Of course,” Gold laughed, carelessly pawing through the pile of games. He pulled out a box that most definitely was not for the game Silver was talking about. “I think I ended up putting it in here…” Gold muttered, opening the case with a slight snap. Silver tried not to flinch at the sound. “Damn, not in here,” Gold said, sheepishly grinning up at Silver before opening another game case. He went through five before he found the right game. Not that Silver was counting or anything.

  
“You’re not very organized,” Silver said, not even fighting against the tension he felt in his face. Smiling felt… nice.

  
“Ughhhhh, I know,” Gold threw his head back slightly and made a huffing sound, “You’re not gonna get all clean-y on my room like Crys does, right?” Gold wrapped his hands together, held them up to his face, and turned towards Silver. Why was he doing that thing with his eyes? He looked like he was about to cry, his eyes so wide and innocent looking… Silver felt like his heart was going to melt just from looking at Gold making that face. Ugh, Silver tried to shake that thought out of his mind, but he was having a hard time, especially when Gold mumbled, “Pretty please, Silvy?” His voice was elevated in pitch a little, and if Silver wasn’t so certain that Gold wouldn’t stop this low, he would have sworn that the ‘r’ in Pretty was almost said like a ‘w’.

  
But wait, there was a question, wasn’t there? A question Silver had to actually answer or the boy was going to realize that his little act was having a noticeable effect on Silver. How embarrassing would that be? “Of course I’m not going to clean your room, idiot,” Silver hoped that his words weren’t that rude, since they were spoken with a smile.

  
“Thank the lord,” Gold said, wiping his brow like he’d actually been worried. “Your controller, little Silvy,” Gold, still sitting on the floor, swooped his arm out and held the controller up with his head bowed, as if presenting some valuable artifact to a king. Silver, trying his hardest to play along, gingerly removed the controller from Gold’s hands.

  
“Uhhh,” Silver’s mind was reeling. What would one say back in this situation? “Uhhh, thank you, uhh, m’lord?” Silver’s voice grew quieter and quieter. Despite the fact that he was mortified with his words, he felt his face still twisted into a small, but noticeable smile.

  
His smile even managed to stay in place effortlessly when Gold began laughing. He didn’t have a single (lasting) thought that Gold was actually making fun of him, even when Gold ended up rolling on the floor, gasping for air. His laugh was a deep, bellowing noise, which often broke up into little, high-pitched giggles. Silver couldn’t help but wonder how anyone was that pure and genuinely happy. “S-Silv,” Gold choked Silver’s name out in between gasps for air, “You’re the best. You’re the fucking best.” He took a few seconds to compose himself. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and ran his hand over his face, changing his expression so after it emerged from under his hand, he was no longer laughing. “Back to buisiness, boy-o,” Gold said, struggling to keep himself from breaking down into uncontrollable laughs once more.

  
“Back to buisiness indeed,” Silver said. He could do it. He could break Gold down into those giggles again if he so desired. He didn’t want to abuse his powers though, that seemed almost mean. But you know what? Silver was kind of mean. “Boy-o,” Silver tacked onto the end of his statement, keeping his face completely neutral. Gold took one look at him, sputtered out a laugh he was trying desperately to contain, and promptly ended up rolling around the floor again.

  
Silver couldn’t hold back his own laugh, as it built up in his stomach and came sputtering out. He couldn’t have held it in even if he had wanted to. Honestly though? He didn’t want to. He wanted to laugh and have fun and enjoy Gold’s presence without always worrying about whether or not he was in the way.  
“You fuck me up,” Gold gasped in between laughs. Silver cocked his head, not sure if that was supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing. Should he apologize, or should he laugh? Would it be weird if he did both? What about neither? Silver sighed, grabbing a piece of his long hair in between two fingers, and just pulling it down so it was straight, then releasing it so it popped back up to curl at the end. Maybe if he just focused on his hair, he wouldn’t have to be worried about social interactions.

  
“It’s a good thing, Silv,” Gold said, without a hint of patronization in his voice. He pulled himself out of his laughs, sitting up so he was actually looking at Silver.

  
“How so?” Silver felt odd asking Gold to explain, but he figured it was less weak to actually ask than to just pretend like he understood the whole time.

  
“It’s like… uhhh,” Gold tapped his finger against his chin as if he had to really think about it. If he was using it as a phrase, shouldn’t he already know the meaning? Instead of being irritated at him though, Silver found himself grinning like an idiot too. “I mean it in like, only a good sense. It’s like, you’re hilarious, whether you mean to be or not. And I’m not saying that in a like, haha let’s make fun of Silv sense. I just mean it like, once you let your guard down and act like the real you, you’re a really neat person, y’know?” Gold grinned at him, but for some reason, when Silver grinned back Gold started looking everywhere but at him. Silver could have sworn Gold’s tan face was flushed, but why would it be?

  
“You too,” Silver felt the words escape his mouth before he even thought about them. He felt his face heat up immensely, especially as Gold chuckled slightly. It wasn’t that it was weird to be nice to Gold (Well, it was, but that wasn’t the point), it was just that his statement didn’t even really make sense. Only some of Gold’s words could be reflected back at him. What Silver had wanted to do was thank Gold for being such a good friend, even if they hadn’t known each other long.

  
Instead of making fun of Silver though, Gold stood up from the floor, grabbed the other controller, and plopped down in his chair. Silver felt like the chair hadn’t always been that close to him. Gold was close enough that when Silver tried to sneak side glances at him through his hair, Gold was too close for comfort. Or, well, he would be if he was anyone else. Since it was Gold though, Silver couldn’t help but think about how his eyes looked even brighter up close. His face looked so soft and… pokeable. Silver wasn’t usually a touchy person, so why was it that every time he looked at Gold’s face, he just felt an irresistible urge to bury his finger right at the spot where Gold’s dimple normally was.

  
Silver was going to resist the urge, but when he thought of how Gold said he liked the Silver that had been hidden away under years of repression and abuse, Silver thought that it might be best to just do what he felt inside. After all, that was the Silver that Gold liked, and for a reason completely unknown to Silver, making Gold happy seemed leaps and bounds more important than making himself happy. Making Gold happy made Silver happy though, so it worked out okay in the end no matter what.

  
He reached his arm out, not even bothering to hide his face behind his hair as he looked over at Gold and poked him in the cheek. Gold reached over and poked Silver back, grinning at him. Instead of mentioning it though, Gold just said, “Ready to lose?”

  
Silver would have protested, but he knew that no matter what he said, he was going to end up losing the game to Gold. He wasn’t upset though. Silver felt like he was starting to understand the reason that so many of the other students at school loved games so much. It gave him a reason to spend time with Gold. It made sense for them to like all the stupid things they liked, if it meant that they got to see their own friends.

  
Silver never thought friendship would make his heart beat so fast. He never thought that he'd not want to go home for a different reason. Going home that night though, it didn't seem so bad anymore, because he knew he'd get to see Gold at school the next day, and that was something that Silver could be happy for.


	13. The Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To anyone who is back to check this update after my way too long break, I'm sorry guys. Good news is, I've got almost another chapter after this one written already, so like, I'm hoping that I'll actually be consistent this time!  
> That being said, this chapter does get a little violent at times, and I'd just like to say that Giovanni is a terrible person in this, so obviously his words are going tobe bad at points!

Silver hadn’t found himself actually looking forward to going to school for a reason other than it not being home since years ago when Blue began to torture him. She wouldn’t leave him alone for weeks, forcing him to talk to her and for reasons unknown to him, he looked forward to it. At least this time he accepted that he desperately wanted to hang out with Gold because he was genuinely… not angry to have a friend. 

For once in his life, walking onto the bus didn’t entirely cloud his mind with rage at the carelessness and raucous personalities of the other students. Not entirely. He still pushed a boy out of his way who ignored his quiet, “Pardon me,” twice. What was he even doing standing in the aisle when Silver was the only one at that bus stop? How could he get more careless? Silver ignored the boy’s cries of protest and trudged back to his assigned seat. He glowered down at his seat partner, who immediately scooted as close to the window as he could. Silver couldn’t let the idiot start thinking that he was a softie just because Silver was feeling happy, after all. The entire way to the school, however, Silver’s thoughts were nagging away at that bit of calmness that he had built up over the previous night after sneaking into his house once Gold’s mom made him go home. 

What was he supposed to do when he got to school? Usually, he stormed to his locker, pushing aside anyone who dared to cross his path. Then he’d stomp into his homeroom, throw his backpack down at the bottom of the chair, and slump down in his seat, trying his hardest to neither be noticed nor notice anyone else. He didn’t even know if Gold was in his homeroom if he had to be completely honest. He always tried his hardest to not learn anyone’s names. Silver spent so long combing his brain trying to think of whether or not he’d seen Gold’s annoying smile in homeroom that he didn’t even notice that they’d stopped at the school until his seatmate, who was annoying in the true sense of the word, tapped him on the shoulder and spewed some useless words in Silver’s direction.

Silver, of course, recoiled from the touch as if it were going to sear a hole in his skin had he let it linger even slightly longer. It was only when his seatmate flinched that Silver realized his fist was instinctively raised. Why did Gold hang around such an instinctively violent person? Gold was happy, carefree, and friendly. Silver was an asshole who was threatening to punch some innocent freshman because he tapped his shoulder. Silver, after an embarrassingly long time lost in his thoughts, let his fist fall limply to his side. He forced a curt nod, immediately brushing the resulting waterfall of hair out of his eyes. He could barely convince his feet to move down the aisle in a timely manner, his legs felt as if they were made of lead. Why did that boy make him react so strongly to such little things?

It was a good thing that every day at school was the same because Silver felt so disoriented that he knew if his legs didn’t remember where to take him, his mind wouldn’t have been able to navigate that route. It was strange, trying to remove the aggression from his schedule. A bump in the hallway would have been at the very least a threatened punch, but instead he just clenched his fist and thought of the boy he wanted to see. A group of strangers was gathered in front of his locker, and Silver, get this, had the strength to mutter first an, ‘excuse me,’ then a louder, ‘that’s my locker,’ before he began to raise his fist. He just wanted to get his books from his locker so he could go search for Gold.

Honestly, Silver was highly stressed about the whole thing. He never found himself lingering on one thing for such a long amount of time. He had grown accustomed to the lifestyle of never thinking too hard about anything that needed improvement. That way he couldn’t be disappointed with his lack of ability to fix it. But his friendship with Gold destroyed all of his boundaries. Silver found himself thinking of what he could say to the boy to draw out the laugh he ever so desired from his friend. His friend. He took solace in the fact that it was becoming easier to think of Gold not as that boy who let him eat and hang out at his house, but as a friend. A friend seemed like such an unattainable goal to Silver mere days prior, not that he would ever have admitted to himself that it was something he desired, somewhere deep down.

Silver was dragged out of his thoughts when he heard a familiar bellowing laugh from somewhere down the hall. He didn’t expect that hearing the presence of his friend would make him so… nervous. He felt downright jittery. Why was his heart beating so fast? It was just _Gold_ , after all.

Silver, for reasons he himself didn’t quite understand, ducked around a corner, bowing his head, instead of going up to his friend. He didn’t want to walk up, say hi, and be confronted by the rest of Gold’s more important friends. Although, there was a tiny part of his mind that thought that Gold would drop them for him. After all, it seemed that to everyone else, Gold was simply the stupid jock that Silver used to think he was. Maybe he still was just that stupid jock, but Silver had seen a part of him that he didn’t think existed. He… cared. That was something Silver had never really felt before. But… Silver thought… Gold also seemed to care about his reputation, which was something that being friends with Silver would immediately get in the way of. Silver was the school troublemaker. Silver was the one who hurt others. Gold was the one who brought joy to others. They were opposites, and as their names suggested, Gold was the star and Silver was just second rate.

As Silver once more became lost in his thoughts, he felt himself getting heated for some reason. He usually just funneled all of his despair into rage, honestly. If he could make himself feel less worthless by hurting a stranger, he would do it. That felt wrong when he thought of Gold though. He thought of how Gold flinched when Silver snapped at him. He couldn’t bear thinking that, if he hadn’t noticed a good side of Gold, there might be a good side in others. Others who, expectedly, would never give him a second glance because he had most likely beat the shit out of someone important to them. He felt almost, inexplicably, saddened by that. He knew that, even if they got to know him, most of those people wouldn’t want anything to do with him. He also knew that he wouldn’t want anything to do with them, as most of them were bumbling idiots who, although they might not have deserved to be physically harmed, deserved to be put in their place. He only really wanted to be friends with Gold and Blue, but still. He had ruined his opportunity for friendship with practically everyone else, and he didn’t want to force his unpopularity on Gold by proxy.

Now, Silver never claimed to be the best at managing emotions. In fact, if there were someone he was close enough to divulge his innermost thoughts to, he would probably have to admit that he didn’t know what to do with his feelings at all. He didn’t even admit that to himself, however, so instead of dealing with things the rational way, he decided that he shouldn’t sully his one friend’s reputation with the scarlet letter that came along with his scarlet hair. So, when he heard that laughing grow closer, and then a call of, “Oh, hey bro,” Silver did the unthinkable.

Despite the fact that all he wanted, more than anything else at that moment, was to turn around, smile, and say, “Hey Gold,” Silver forced himself to take a step… then another step… and another… More and more frantically until he was practically running away from the boy with the piercing golden eyes. He pushed a few people out of his way, all the while thinking that this useless, erratic behavior was exactly why he couldn’t associate himself with someone as genuine as Gold. Gold had friends. Gold had a family. Gold had people who  _ admired _ him. Silver had none of that. He was stuck as just another admirer of Gold, someone who looked up to the boy’s exuberance as something that was unattainable for him. Something off in the distance, that, should he choose to pursue it, would never be close enough to grasp. Like trying to reach the end of a rainbow… the closer you get, the vaguer it becomes, until it fades out of view completely. 

Silver ran to his homeroom, frantically trying to channel his panic into literally anything else but what it was trying to become. He couldn’t be weak here. He couldn’t show all these worthless strangers that he wasn’t only good for kicking ass. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. It was hard enough knowing that Gold knew he was secretly weak. If everyone else knew he was weak, then they’d have no reason to fear him. They lose their reason for fear, Silver loses the only buffer he has between himself and the world. He needed them to stay scared of him, but if he broke down, they would no longer have even an inkling of that fear. He’d go from the boy you don’t mess with to the little wimp who was crying in homeroom. 

Not even Gold could save him if the news that he was a weakling got brought up in a parent-teacher conference. No one would be able to help him then.

So he had to help himself instead. He had to do  _ something _ before he showed his weakness to the class. So, when whoever it was that sat behind him came in, and accidentally shook Silver’s desk when tossing down his backpack, Silver snapped. He had no choice, honestly. He shot up like a rocket, grabbing the smaller boy’s shirt collar and pulling him right into his clenched fist. If he hit, he wasn’t crying. If he was the strong one, how could he be perceived as weak? 

“Silver!” He heard the voice of the one who knew that he was weak ring out. He couldn’t stop though. He couldn’t let them know that he wasn’t who they thought he was. 

“Silver, stop!” He felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him away harshly. He couldn’t stop though. If he stopped, they’d know how weak he was.

He was yanked back, his bloodied first grabbed and held firmly. The world was blurring around him and he couldn’t tell why. All he could think about was how weak he was and how much he needed to keep up the facade. Just keep living life as he had prior. No one could know he was happy. No one could know he felt like he was a different person. He tried to yank his fist back to hit again, but it was stuck in place. 

Silver couldn’t stand the feeling of being restrained, especially because, for inexplicable reasons, the world was still blurred around him. The lights were dancing, sparkling too bright for comfort. The boy he was punching was only a dark blur,  a shadow in the sparkling of the lights. Silver quickly, without even taking the time to think about it, swung his off hand in the direction of the restraint of his wrist. He needed his hand back. He needed his freedom back. He needed the chance to prove that he wasn’t a coward, that he wasn’t weak.

As soon as he felt his fist make contact with the one who was holding him back, however, Silver realized that he was a coward. He was a coward because he was so scared of being a coward that he had just, with no return, ruined the one good thing that had happened to him. He blinked the confusion away, returning the world to full color, as he realized that the blurring had been the build-up of useless tears in his cowardly eyes. The hand holding his fist immediately released, shooting up to cup a cheek that Silver’s other fist had just made contact with.

“Gol-” Silver started to speak, but he was cut off by the other boy.

“Silver, look, I know things aren’t okay, but you need to learn how to deal with yourself without hurting others, dammit.” Gold cupped his cheek with his hand, looking down at Silver, who was inexplicably on the floor. When did he get on the floor? 

“I’m sorry…” Silver’s voice was meek, quiet, everything that he didn’t want to be. But as he looked around the room, most of the class pushed against the wall furthest away from him, some of them filming, the boy he attacked scooted against another wall with two people tending to him, and - worst of all - Gold staring down at him with disappointment in his eyes, Silver realized that a sorry couldn’t fix it. A sorry couldn’t come anywhere close to fixing it. 

What had he done?

Gold stood there, staring down at him, and Silver felt his worthlessness building up again. He didn’t want to be weak. He didn’t want everyone to see that he wasn’t the huge bully he always came across as - or rather, he didn’t want them to see that he had no desire to be that huge bully that he was. He didn’t want his moment of weakness eternally immortalized in the recordings on their stupid cellular devices. But the thing he wanted least of all? The thing he wanted least of all was to lose Gold. He didn’t want the boy to hate him, no matter how much pain he had caused him, both physically and most likely emotionally.

So, Silver did the strongest thing of all, which was to let his facade fall and let his weakness prevail. Silver sat there, tears running silently down his face while he sat on the floor in front of Gold. “I’m sorry…” He muttered the useless words again, despite the fact that he knew that they made no real difference. “I’m so sorry…”  He thought no amount of sorries would ever be able to repair the friendship he had with Gold.

What he didn’t expect was for Gold, still cupping his quickly bruising cheek, to squat down next to him and say, “We gotta work on those social skills, my dude.” Then, the most baffling part of it all, Gold gave a chuckle and held out his hand and said, “C’mon, stand up. We’ll talk about this later.” Silver collected every ounce of the strength he had left, and took Gold’s hand, letting Gold help him up from his crumpled and broken point on the floor.

No sooner had Silver gotten up off of the floor than the school resource officer came storming into the room. Silver knew the drill by now, so he went to follow the officer, who was looking at him as disapprovingly as ever. What Silver didn’t realize, however, was that he was still grasping the hand that had helped him up. He felt his stomach churning, and he immediately released it, sort of throwing it back at Gold, who just let his arm flop down as he gave Silver a lopsided grin and said, “Sorry bro.” 

SIlver’s hand immediately felt… empty. He couldn’t understand why, but he really wanted to just take the boy’s hand back and feel its warmth course through Silver’s body. He wanted to see how much bigger Gold’s hands were than his… After all the boy was quite a bit taller than Silver. He scoffed as his mind, for some strange and completely unprecedented reason, went to him thinking about holding Gold’s hand. What a joke of a thought that was. Silver was definitely not some kind of freak like his dad always told him he was. He was so used to hearing that his father didn’t ask for this, “Stupid faggy son.” He couldn’t let that get in his head. He didn’t want to hold Gold’s hand. He really didn’t, no matter how warm it felt… 

Silver was dragged out of those concerning thoughts when the SRO said, “What happened this time? Someone look at you the wrong way?” 

Normally, Silver would snap at him, make all sorts of excuses, and fight tooth and nail to get his way. Instead of putting up that show, which ultimately ended up with Silver being the weaker one, Silver simply replied with, “I snapped.”

Gold, Silver, and the boy who Silver attacked were all brought to the front office (After, of course, they were all brought to the nurse.). Silver was used to the whole rundown of events. Gold, on the other hand, was not. He sat there in the waiting room, tapping his foot rapidly. He kept running his hands through his unkempt hair. So often that Silver started to wonder how it would feel to run his own hands through it. He had a sudden desire to run his hands through Gold’s hair, grab a handful and pull the boy close to him to --

“And here I was thinking that we might get all the way through the morning announcements without any trouble for you,” the voice of the school discipline officer snapped Silver immediately out of his ludicrous thoughts. The meeting went as they usually went. The discipline officer berated Silver and told him that this was his last chance and that his father’s donations couldn’t keep him out of alternative school forever. Silver, however, apologized for once. He told the boy that he attacked that it was a bad thing for him to do and that he was genuinely sorry about it. It came out in a jumbled mess, but it came out, and that was what was important to Silver. Well, the look of satisfaction on Gold’s face was what was important to Silver. He couldn’t care less what the idiot he beat up thought.

Gold and Silver walked out of the office together. Gold was to report back to class, and Silver was to report to the in-school suspension classroom, but on the way to do just that, Gold dragged Silver into the bathroom. “We need to talk,” Gold said, running his hand through his hair again, in that same jittery way he had before.

“W-what?” Silver’s heart started pounding, for reasons unbeknownst to him. Maybe Gold was going to tell him that this whole friendship thing wasn’t gonna work out. Maybe he was going to tell him that it was a mistake to approach him in the first place, as Silver was obviously beyond the point where anything could help him.  

“Look, I know the real you. They don’t,” Gold sighed, leaning against the bathroom wall, which was honestly a pretty disgusting thing to do, in Silver’s opinion, but he didn’t say a word. “I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier, but you need to get yourself under control. I know that you don’t mean it, and you didn’t mean to do this,” Gold gestured at his face, where a black eye was quickly developing, “But, not meaning to do something isn’t an excuse, bro. You broke that kid’s nose, and that’s not an okay thing to do. I know something’s up you’re not telling me, but like, that’s not a way to deal with things. That’s not the way to deal with anything. So, just cut the shit, okay?” Gold, who had been staring down at the floor, or really anywhere but at Silver, since the incident, stared right into Silver’s eyes for that last part. His golden gaze locked on to Silver, who felt compelled to immediately agree before he had even processed the words. 

“I panicked…” Silver mumbled, knowing it was a pathetic excuse. “I wasn’t going to fight today, I swear,” he immediately spat out. “You make me want to be better,” his words started strong, but died down into a whisper before his sentence was over. “Gold…” He whispered his friend’s name, but he couldn’t get the rest of what he wanted to say out. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but he couldn’t force his words out. 

Gold, after staring at Silver expectantly for a little bit, said, “Panic in the face of change is normal, or uhh, something like that. Not sure if that’s a quote or not, but I think it makes sense. Just, don’t take that panic out on others, y’know? You don’t need to be better though, bro. You just need to be the real you.” 

Silver scoffed at that and muttered, “Broken?”

“What?” Gold questioned, leaning in, close enough where Silver could see the darker specks littering his golden eyes, “Couldn’t hear you.”

Silver, who was going to brush it off and just storm off, decided that he needed to be strong for once. He opened his mouth and whispered, just loud enough for Gold to hear, “I can’t be the real me. He’s… broken.” Silver then, despite his previous disgust with it, leaned against the filthy bathroom wall, letting his tears fall down his cheeks again.

“Bro… No… You’re not broken,” Gold looked at Silver, whose tears were becoming thicker, laced with the occasional gasp, and he said, “You might be a bit damaged, but aren’t we all? I’m here to help you though, now. Don’t you ever forget that, bro.” 


	14. The Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this chapter.

The entire day at school, Silver was stuck in the in-school suspension classroom. No matter how hard he tried to focus on his school work, all he could think about was that, even though he had harmed Gold, Gold still wanted him as a friend. How could someone still want to be around him after seeing that side of him? Silver wasn’t even too concerned about the fact that everyone knew how weak he was inside - it was freaking him out every time he thought about it, he couldn’t deny that - because Gold was just so overpowering in his mind. 

In fact, Silver was so hung up on thinking about the boy whose eyes ever so brilliantly matched his name, that the day flew by, and before he knew it, he was headed towards the bus line, where he was to be transported home, back to despair. Back to where he couldn’t even think of Gold to pass the time, lest his father notice that he was content for once. Silver trudged towards the bus line, but when he stepped outside the doors, he realized that he couldn’t just keep letting his life trudge on in the same miserable fashion that it always had. Instead, he had to take it in his hands - in a non-violent way…- and force it to go the direction he wanted.

Silver, in a bit of an overaggerated manner he had to admit, turned towards the student parking lot and sprinted, as fast as he ever had before, towards it. He had to get there before Gold left. He had to. He couldn’t just get on the bus and go home. He just couldn’t let himself be subjected to the torment of his home life when he had something to look forward to. He had always hoped that things would get bad enough where someone would notice and save him, but inside, he always figured that things would only get bad enough that he would be beyond saving. He was saved though, Silver realized. Gold didn’t know enough to really, truly, save him, but his friendship was solace enough.

Luckily for Silver, when he rounded the corner, he saw that, although a lot of cars were pulling out of the lot already, Gold was leaning against the hood of his shiny golden car, waving his hands around frantically as he talked to Crystal. Silver, not missing a beat (He couldn’t let his thoughts get in the way of his happiness), slowed his sprint down to a steady jog, and made his way over to them, almost running in front of a car on his way. 

“H-Hey,” he gasped out, trying to hide the fact that he was winded. Gold would definitely question that one. Judging by the way Crystal cocked her head at him, it was not a success. 

“What’s up, bro?” Gold asked, smiling at him, despite the obvious black eye he was sporting. 

Before Silver could answer, however, Crystal stepped in between the two boys and hissed, quiet enough that Gold would be able to hear noise, but not words, “I knew you were a bad influence when I first saw you in detention, you little snake. Now, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, playing with Gold like this, but you need to back off.”

Silver took a few steps back. What was he supposed to say to that? She was right to be pissed at him if Gold told her where his black eye came from, but Silver didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean it. “I didn’t mean to,” Silver sputtered out, holding his hands up in front of him, to protect his face if he needed to. If she hit him, he wouldn't hit back, but that didn’t mean he’d have to just take it. 

“Crys?” Gold asked, stepping towards the girl who was glaring daggers at Silver.

“Gold, I don’t know what you see in him. All he does is get in fights and cause problems. You don’t need someone like him,” Crys grabbed Gold’s arm firmly, attempting to drag him towards the car. 

“Crys,” Gold said, shaking his arm from her hand, “Love ya, really do, but Silv and I already got this sorted out.”

“I really didn’t mean to,” Silver said, bowing his head instead of making eye contact with the angry woman in front of him.

“Not meaning to do something isn’t an excuse,” Crystal said, once more placing herself between Silver and Gold, as if that could destroy their new friendship. 

“I understand,” Silver said. “I know it wasn’t excusable,” he paused, trying to summon the strength to actually force his thoughts into words for once. “I’m done with it all.” He hoped she would understand what he was trying to get across, because he wasn’t sure if he could force himself to outright say what he was thinking. That was a step for another day.

Fortune never favored Silver though, so he was met with a cock of her head and the question of, “Done with what now?” She seemed to be partially cooled off, however, which was rather nice. Silver didn’t really feel like getting hit by the feisty, taller girl.

“I’m done with the fights. I’m done with the lies. I’m done with the bullshit,” Silver didn’t manage to lift his head from it’s bowed position while speaking, and he certainly didn’t manage to get the volume he desired in his words, but they were out. They had escaped his mouth and there was nothing that could drag them back in, and that, in and of itself, was beautiful.

When he got no immediate response, Silver risked raising his head enough to peek at the girl in front of him. She was staring at him, eyes slightly narrowed. Although her gaze was focused directly on him, she seemed to be mentally somewhere else, lost in the sea of her thoughts. Silver’s eyes were drawn to the movement of Gold’s arm immediately, as he placed his hand on Crys’s shoulder.

“Crys, give Silv a chance, okay? He’s serious, you don’t have to over-analyze everything,” Gold gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, dropping his hand afterwards.

Crystal, finally replying, said, “Very well. Only because I know he’s important to you, for whatever reason.” She then turned to Silver once more, and said in a rather stern tone, “You’re coming to eat with us then.”

“I-” Silver wanted to protest. He wanted to tell them he didn’t have money and he couldn’t bear the humiliation of having to be supported by them every time, but he just couldn’t. “Okay,” Silver said, feeling a smile grace his cheeks again. It was accompanied by a nice, warm feeling that spread throughout his chest.

“I still get to ride shotgun though,” Crystal said, allowing a small smile to cross her own, stern face as she opened the door to Gold’s car and climbed in.

Silver awkwardly stood there as Gold walked around the car and got in the driver seat before he realized that he should get in the back seat. Silver scurried to open the door, but when he yanked the handle, it was locked. Maybe it was locked on purpose, he couldn’t help but think, and they were going to drive away without him and leave him stranded in the school parking lot alone and back to being friendless. He’d deserve it. 

Before Silver had time to get lost in his thoughts though, he felt a metallic click, signaling that Gold had unlocked the car door from him. Silver shook his head as if that could physically shake the bad thoughts out of it. He wanted to be happy. He wanted to relax with his friend and just have a good time before he inevitably had to head home. He wanted to just not think about the bad things that would no doubt end up creeping up on him. He was going to enjoy eating with Gold and Crystal and he wasn’t going to ruin it by being jumpy, depressing, or upset. He was going to be normal, and he was determined. So, he opened the car door, climbed in, and buckled up, ignoring the thoughts that were trying to sneak up and tell him he didn’t belong there.

“Silver? You good, bro?” Gold turned around to look at him, a smile gracing his face as always. How was he always so effervescent? The only time Silver really saw him upset was the moment after he had punched him… Even then, Gold only cared to check that Silver was okay. Silver didn’t understand how someone could be so… pure. Gold was pure and happy and perfect, and Silver was scared that he’d just end up tainting all of that. 

“I’m fine,” Silver said quickly, after he realized that he was once more losing himself in his thoughts. He had to stay present. He couldn’t let himself drift away and miss out on the happiness that was being offered to him.  

“If you say so,” Gold said, turning back towards the front of the car. He glanced back at Silver once or twice before they started to pull out of the parking space and into the line of cars waiting to exit the student lot.

Before they were even in the line, Crystal started fiddling with the radio until she found some station that was playing a song that Gold screamed was ‘his jam!’ Crystal cranked the radio up, and the two of them sang the song as loud as they could alongside the radio. Although it was loud, sounded terrible, and wasn’t something Silver could participate in, it was still enjoyable somehow. After the song was over, they turned the radio back down to a reasonable volume and Crystal said, “So what kind of music do you like, Silver?” 

Silver stared down at his lap, fiddling his hands around nervously as he replied, “I don’t really ever listen to music, honestly.” He didn’t want to have to explain that any car ride with his father was in complete silence, other than the occasional yelling about how worthless of a son he was. Silver wouldn’t dare listen to music out loud at the house, either, so he just never really had a chance to bond with any music enough to say he liked it. 

“Well then, what do you do for fun?” She twisted around in her seat so that she could look at him, sitting behind her. She seemed to be making an effort to get to know him, but he didn’t really have much about him for her to get to know.

“I mostly read,” he mumbled. “I used to practically live at the library near my house, but they closed it a few years back in that budget cut.” 

“Oh wow,” Crystal sighed, “It’s a relief to know that not all of my friends are,” she turned towards Gold and pointedly said, “Useless barbarians who think that reading is boring.” 

“I think it’s nice to be able to go somewhere else for once,” Silver said, his heart pounding at his chest. He felt like he was baring a part of himself that no one else was ever supposed to see.

“Oh, it’s just wonderful, honestly. I love reading stories and imagining what it would be like to be a part of them. Instead, I’m stuck here in my boring old life.” Crystal was grinning wildly, as she stared at Silver, waiting for him to input something into the conversation, but he honestly wasn’t sure what to say. He couldn’t tell her why he loved to escape his life. He didn’t want to say anything that might lead to her deducing that. He didn’t know what to do in a real conversation, honestly. 

“I like reading about the past,” Silver spurted out, “I think things were better then.” 

“Bro, you think the past was better? You wanna be riding around in a horse and buggy with Crys and I, all like ‘Oh dear I don’t think Ole Bessie is going to make it through the winter at this rate.’? Nah, I like what we have going on here. We’re in this wonderful, beautiful car, headed to a nice, air-conditioned restaurant, where we’re going to eat terribly unhealthy fried food and milkshakes. We don’t have anything to worry about in our lives right now, bro. If it were like three hundred years ago, we’d be like, fighting in the Civil War or something.” Gold went on his rant, swerving the car into another lane at one point to turn around and look at Silver, but before he could finish, Crystal interrupted him.

“Gold. The Civil War was  _ not _ three hundred years ago. We literally  _ just _ took a test on that yesterday. It was only about a hundred and fifty years ago, and if you don’t even know that much, I’d assume you’re going to fail the test,” Crystal rolled her eyes and turned back to Silver. “I would have loved to live back then. I think things were simpler, but that made things almost better. I wouldn’t want to have to deal with their medical practices though…” Crystal shuddered exaggeratedly, “I’d like to keep all my limbs.” 

“I just don’t like living in a world where people are so busy staring at their screens that they don’t notice what’s going on in the world around them. Someone makes a company that makes fancy gadgets and he’s automatically seen as a hero to society, no matter what he does in his spare time,” Silver felt his lip curling up slightly as he thought of it. He was so used to having to go to company functions when he was little, where people would pat him on the head and say, ‘Oh, you have the future of the company here, Giovanni,’ to which his father would always make some remark about how brilliant of a kid he was. That’d always get Silver’s hopes up until they got home afterwards.

“Screens are important too though,” Gold said, “I mean, have you seen the new Rocket Phone? That thing looks sleeeeeeek,” Gold once again butted into their conversation, but this time it wasn’t Crystal that he made upset.

“Rocket phones are pieces of shit,” Silver spat out, quickly regretting his decision. Gold knew he had no phone, so it wasn’t like he could claim that he supported one of the other tech giants. Crystal no doubt knew who the CEO of Rocket was, too. 

“Bro, what the heck? They’re amazing. They’re only the forefront of technology. You just don’t understand because you don’t have a phone. If you did have a  phone, it would pale in comparison to the new Rocket phone, because everything does,” Gold laughed and said, “There’s no way my mom is going to agree to buy me one if I failed that history exam though.” 

“I agree with Silver,” Crystal said, “There’s no point in paying so much for a phone that’s only marginally better than the bargain brands. I’ll stick with my cheap phone.” Silver pushed himself back against the seat, just hoping they didn’t put the pieces together of his puzzle. He was missing pieces, but if they connected the ones he had given them, they’d fill in those missing spots with all the hurt he had buried away over the years. Crystal was smart, and she’d know. She’d figure him out…

“Yeah, you keep your cheap little plastic phone made in China. You know the CEO for Rocket lives right here, in our little town, right? Picture that, instead of some nameless, faceless people assembling your cheap phone, we’d have the chance to meet the man himself. Everyone says he’s charming,” Gold didn’t know what he was saying. He just couldn’t understand how wrong he was, and Silver couldn’t tell him either. Silver couldn’t tell him that he was dead wrong and needed to quiet down immediately, or Gold would know. 

“I’ve heard that all he’s good for is cheap business tactics and taking advantage of smaller companies to make his company a world power. He only lives here because supposedly he has a kid whose life he didn’t want to ruin by exposing him to the endless media coverage he’d have in a big city. At least that’s respectable about him, not that it makes up for his business tactics,” Crystal spoke as if her words were matter-of-fact, but really, she didn’t know what she was talking about either. Sure, Giovanni was a very sleazy businessman, but the only reason they never moved to a big city was because he didn’t want to have to spend any of his money on Silver going to a private school. He was planning on living the life he had built for himself the second Silver was 18 and he could legally abandon him with no repercussions. 

“Every businessman does sneaky deals, Crys,” Gold said, whipping the car into the parking lot of the restaurant. “He just does them the right way and makes the best product.” Gold and Crystal both opened their car doors to get out. Silver felt like he needed to move, but he knew if he did, he’d be outed immediately. His legs felt like they were made of Jell-O and his hands were definitely shaking more than he could write away as if it were nothing. He just knew he’d have to continue living the lie he’d always lived because if either of these two found out whose son he was, they’d instantly want free things. They’d want to know how glamorous of a life he was no doubt living. That’s how things always went when he was still making news appearances as a little kid. Before his father hated him enough to pretty much pretend he didn’t exist in public. Or maybe he got scared that Silver would tell someone the truth while on live television.

“Silv?” Gold pulled Silver’s door open, peeking his head inside, “You good, bro?” Gold looked behind him at Crys, who was expectantly waiting. He looked back at Silver, who still couldn’t bring himself to force his limbs to work with him and get out of the car. “Hey Crys, can you run inside and get us a table? Silv and I will be inside in like uhhh thirty milliseconds.” 

“Sure thing,” Crystal said, with one last weary glance towards the two of them.

Gold leaned further into the car, one hand on the roof to hold him up and the other hand reaching forward, ending up with his finger embedded in Silver’s cheek. As soon as Silver felt the impact of the taller boy’s finger, he whipped his head around to face him and he spat out, “My father is the guy you guys were talking about,” then promptly buried his face in his hands. As much as he knew that Gold was a great person, and a great friend, he didn’t think that Gold would put two and two together as smoothly as Crystal obviously would, “You can’t tell anyone though.” Silver muttered the second part. He didn’t want to force Gold into anything, but he couldn’t have anyone figuring out what was going on in his house 

Gold stared at Silver for a few seconds before saying, “I won’t tell anyone, but damn bro. Your house looks so inconspicuous,” Gold paused for a second then said, “Dammit, I forgot Crys went inside, she’s been trying to get me to use our vocab words in sentences in conversations, but I only do it in front of her, bro. Your house looks normal, is what I meant.”

“I know what inconspicuous means, Gold,” Silver muttered, ready for the onslaught of questions about getting free things, life’s luxuries, and why he didn’t have a dime to his name if his father was so rich. 

The only thing Gold chose to question however, was Silver’s hatred of the phones. At least Silver knew that Gold hadn’t caught on. “Silv, your dad doesn’t know that you’re not a Rocket supporter, right? Cuz like, I feel like that’s grounds for being disowned.” 

Silver had to laugh at that one. If only he knew, although it wasn’t possible for him to know. “No, Gold. He has no idea,” Silver laughed once more, hoping that Gold would think he was just enjoying the absurdity of it as much as his friend. “He has absolutely no idea.”  
“I won’t tell Crys, she’d probably kill you. She hates Rocket way too much,” Gold leaned out of the car and said, “I wish I could live that secret life though. I’ve always wanted to have some kind of big secret I couldn’t tell anyone. No wonder you act so weird about home, probably didn’t want me seeing him and realizing it, right bro?”

“Right,” Silver said sullenly. He was almost disappointed, for some reason. Sure, his life would crumble down around him if Gold had realized the truth, but was it really worth hiding everything to continue living the miserable life he was living? Especially because now he had some elaborate lie to keep up with Gold, who thought Silver’s secret was a good one.

“Okay, well, I really want to get all the cool details from you now, but like, Crys is gonna throw a hissy fit if we’re not in there soon, okay bro?” Gold beckoned for Silver to come out of the car, so he did. Silver felt like, instead of living the life he was happy with minutes ago, he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t. Everything was moving by him in a blur, a blur which didn’t feel like real life. He barely even tasted his food, and he told Gold he’d pay him back for it later, which he didn’t know how he was going to follow through on. He couldn’t be a freeloader if Gold knew how rich his father was though.

They dropped Crystal off at her house first (She yelled at Gold to study for the math exam they had the next day before going inside), then they headed towards Silver’s house. Silver stared out the window, not wanting to have to speak with Gold and fill the air with lies that would float between them, clouding the air of their friendship until it was unrecognizable. Gold, however, couldn’t sit still with the news he had learned. “Silv, I know you don’t really want to talk about it, but like, is your house full of cool gadget prototypes and stuff? You gotta let me see, I’m your bro after all.” 

Silver winced at that one. Gold could, under no circumstances, enter his house. His father would come across as a perfect gentleman to Gold, and then Gold would do nothing but praise him. “He only manages, he’s not an engineer,” Silver mumbled. 

“But, like, you guys must get to travel to a ton of cool places over the summers!” Gold didn’t seem to pick up on the mood in the car. 

“I don’t like to travel,” Silver bluntly stated, his voice cold as ice. In reality, his father really did travel a lot, but not enough for Silver to feel safe. The weeks he was gone were always peace, but he always returned with much more of a fervor. 

“But Silv, you literally just said to Crys that you liked to read because it like, took you somewhere else, or something like that. So why not actually go somewhere else?” Gold just didn’t seem to drop it. Silver wanted to just sit there in silence and brood in his thoughts while he could still do it in peace. He knew it was a mistake to trust someone as a friend when just one slip could bring it all crashing down.

“That’s different,” Silver muttered. Why were people so enamored with his father anyways. Crystal was right when she said he used cheap tactics. He was a sleazy businessman and an even sleazier person. 

“I’d much rather go to New Zealand than read some stupid book,” Gold said, still not dropping it.

“I wouldn’t,” Silver said. Which was obviously a lie. Who wouldn’t want to escape Silver’s shitty life and run away to New Zealand? Then, Silver’s mouth decided to work separate from his brain, leaking out something that Silver knew he shouldn’t have ever said, in a million years, “Not with him.”

And there it was. The silence. Silver figured that that would be what he was met with. He didn’t want to look up and see Gold’s face, laced with confusion no doubt as to of how Silver couldn’t want to spend time with such an amazing guy. What Silver was met with, however, when he looked up at Gold was a bit of confusion, yes, but mostly understanding. “Silver?” Gold spoke his name as if it were a request for him to say more. Silver merely nodded, and Gold, shoulders tensed up asked, “Is he the problem?” 

“He…” Silver tried to spit out his words. He needed them in the open. He needed the support of Gold. He needed something that was really, truly, entirely him. “He hates me.” Silver’s words were barely above a whisper, but he knew Gold understood him. He knew Gold, at the very least, knew that Silver and his father didn’t get along. And y’know, that was better than what anyone else ever knew. It was enough for Silver. 

“My dad walked out on my mom when I was little,” Gold blurted out. “He told me that I was too much of a troublemaker for him to deal with, then the next day he was gone.” Gold stared down at his feet as he spoke.

“Probably wasn’t your fault,” Silver said. He wanted to say that there was no way it was Gold’s fault, but then again…. Gold was indeed a troublemaker. Not that it made what his father did acceptable or anything, by any means, Silver thought. 

“I got in a ton of trouble when I was little, but it was ultimately his decision. Mum threw away everything to support me though,” Gold darted his eyes away from meeting Silver’s gaze. He threw a hand behind his head, scratching at his head. “Don’t normally talk about this.” Silver wasn’t used to seeing Gold so… mellowed out. He had none of his usual pep in his voice. He seemed subdued, and Silver didn’t like it. He wanted to see his peppy, obnoxiously loud friend.

“My mom died and my dad never really recovered. We’re leaving it at that,” Silver said. He didn’t want to lie to Gold, but he didn’t want to dump everything on the boy either. It was already heavy enough that it was pushing down Gold’s bubbliness. 

“We don’t have to,” Gold said, but to Silver, his tone of voice meant that they did have to. He sounded serious, and serious didn’t suit Gold. He needed to be laughing constantly, joking around, and being his usual annoying obnoxious self. 

So, Silver needed him to know that. “You’re lame when you’re serious,” Silver muttered, staring at his feet while he felt his face heat up. Why did he feel so hot? “I like it better when you’re annoying.” The more he spoke, the hotter his face became, but Silver was honestly getting more and more used to having his body not listen to the set of rules that it previously listened to. Gold took everything that Silver took for granted and he ripped it all to shreds. Honestly though? Silver really could use more of his status quo ripped to shreds. After all, how else would he replace it with something better? 


	15. Hot Chocolate

The best part about telling Gold that his home wasn’t really the best place to be was that Gold made a lot more of an effort to make Silver come over to his house. After they left the restaurant that day, Gold made a point of dropping Crystal off first, spouting some nonsense about it being a better route. In reality, once she was out of the car, Gold sighed and said, “Bro, I love her, but she could not read the situation at alllllllll.” He had a point though, she had stormed out of the restaurant in the middle of Gold and Silver’s heart to heart, telling Gold off for always being too slow and getting in the way of other people’s efficiency. She seemed to have a point though. Silver felt a lot less efficient after meeting Gold.

“She’s nice,” Silver didn’t really want to agree with Gold, because he didn’t want to come across as feeling negatively towards Crystal. She seemed nice enough, just a little socially stunted - not that Silver really had even a shred of room to talk in that regard. At least sometimes he could read that people were tense and needed to not be yelled at.

“She’s a pain in my neck,” Gold replied, “But she’s good and all, don’t get me wrong. Sometimes she’s just like a bossy older sister, always getting onto me for not being smart like she is.” Gold laughed, but honestly, that got on Silver’s nerves quite a bit. 

“You’re smart, you just don’t take every second of your time honing that like it seems like she does.” Silver would never admit it, but he was always aiming to beat Crystal in school, but he could never quite pull ahead for long. His father always wanted him to be top of the class though, so in a sense, it was sort of liberating to know that the girl who always beat him was at least a good person. 

“I’m not smart,” Gold’s phone lit up as he spoke and he grabbed it, “Smart people don’t text and drive.” Silver, honestly he just didn’t want to die from Gold’s irresponsibility, yanked Gold’s phone out of his hand and tossed it into the backseat, hoping that it would make the other boy actually  _ focus _ on what was important, but instead, it almost ended up causing a wreck in and of itself, as Gold slumped down in his seat and groped around the floorboards of the back seat, swerving in the process.

“I agree that you’re an idiot in that aspect,” Silver said, pushing Gold up from his slumped position. “Now watch the road before we both die from it.”

“At least check my text bro,” Gold said, turning once more to look at Silver, lip stuck out in an over exaggerated manner, “I’ll die if I don’t know who’s tryna get ahold of me.”

“No, idiot,” Silver muttered, “You’ll die if you care that much about some stupid phone.” I’m here now, he wanted to say, but that’d be needy and annoying. That’d get in the way of Gold’s social life. Silver was only a fraction of the people Gold felt a need to talk to, and honestly, the fact that he’d risk his life to check his phone made Silver feel a lot less important in the grand scheme of things. Sure, Gold went out of his way to take care of Silver, but he went out of his way to check on his phone too. Not that different, in the long run. Gold wouldn’t risk his life for Silver, after all. At least Silver hoped not. 

“I’m good at texting and driving,” Gold laughed, despite the fact that he was being a complete and utter idiot. 

“Idiot,” Silver muttered, half hoping Gold didn’t hear him. It was probably less socially acceptable for Silver to be opposed to texting and driving than it was for Gold to be pro texting and driving. What a topsy turvy world it was turning out to be.

“Yeah, yeah,” Gold muttered, luckily keeping his eyes on the road and off of Silver for once. (But why did that cause a sharp pain in Silver’s chest? It was safer, so it should be better) “Crys yells at me too for it, y’know,” Gold tossed out his words into the air as if they meant something. So what if Crystal also disagreed with Gold’s endangering his own life. Silver probably disagreed more, anyways. He probably cared more, right?

“I think she disagrees with a lot of what you do.” Silver started messing with his hair, suddenly hyper aware of the words that escaped his lips. What if Gold thought Silver was trying to sabotage his and Crystal’s friendship? Did normal people think that way? Silver would think that way, but he wasn’t normal, was he?

Gold, instead of snapping at Silver that he and Crystal’s friendship was perfectly healthy and that he didn’t need Silver’s interjections, laughed and said, “Heh, yeah, she judges me, but she loves me anyways.” At that, Silver’s heart practically skipped a beat (Why?). 

“She loves you?” He couldn't stop his words from escaping, although he wished he could reach out and shove them deep down inside instead. Why did he go from talking too little to talking too much? How did Gold always seem to walk that line perfectly, saying what needed to be said when it needed to be said and… well… He didn’t really do the best job of keeping meaningless information trapped inside, so Silver couldn’t credit him with that. 

“I mean, yea. She’s a caring friend, so of course she does,” and with that one, Silver’s heart felt normal again. Of course that’s what Gold meant. Of course it was. Silver was an idiot to think that Gold meant it in any other way whatsoever. Why would him and Crystal be together? (Why wouldn’t they?) Why did Silver care? (Or did he? He didn’t, did he? He shouldn’t.)

“Oh. Good.” Silver’s mouth once more didn’t obey anything Silver had taught it in the past seventeen years of his life. Why couldn't it have just stayed shut. Why couldn’t his puzzling words just have stayed deep inside where he could ignore them and pretend like they weren’t real.

“Good?” Gold immediately pounced on Silver’s mistake. Silver was hoping, fruitlessly, he knew, that Gold wouldn’t notice what he had said. Why had he said what he said? “Why good? Bro, uhhh, do you like Crys? Cuz like, I don’t know how I’d handle that, what with you two being my besties and all.”  
“Besties?” Silver wanted to scream in Gold’s face that he didn’t like Crystal. Well, he wanted to scream that he didn’t like her like that. But, Gold’s phrasing hit Silver harder than his assumption that Silver liked the know-it-all who was supposed to be Gold’s one best friend. One best friend, which implied a singular best friend, and certainly not the implied multiple best friends that Gold had stated. How could Silver be considered a ‘bestie’ if he’d only known Gold for a few days and all he’d done was cause the boy trouble and hit him in the face? What was so alluring to Gold about Silver that he would consider him to be such a good friend even after Silver proved to be everything but?

“As in best friends, Silv, jeez,” Gold explained his words like Silver was some kind of idiot who didn’t understand the most basic of phrasings. I mean, seriously, what about him implied that his question was literally about the word itself? Silver tried to convey himself as someone who wasn’t actually stupid. “But seriously, you like Crys? That’s a little gross, bro. She’s like, almost my sister.”

“Blue’s my sister and you said  _ she _ was cute,” Silver immediately snapped back, then realized that he was incriminating himself by leaving out a denial. He just hoped that his denial didn’t end up making Gold think even worse of him. “Anyways, I don’t like Crystal like that,” Silver threw it on at the end, hoping everything would end with that. He didn’t want to have to think about liking people, what with the strange, unwanted thoughts that kept drifting in and out of his mind.

“Blue  _ is  _ cute!” Gold exclaimed, “But since she’s your sister, and you’re my bro, I wouldn’t go there. So you can’t go there with Crys.” Gold just didn’t seem to understand. Either that or he didn’t  _ want  _ to understand. Silver shouldn’t really care. He shouldn’t. What did it matter if Gold thought he liked Crystal? It wasn’t important to their friendship, and it’s not like Silver would ever tell Gold that for a single split-second, he wanted to feel his hand intertwined with the hand of the raven haired boy. That was a disgusting thing for him to have even thought, anyways. 

“I don’t want to go anywhere with Crystal,” Silver muttered, “I don’t even want to be friends with her.” As cruel as it was starting to feel to say out loud, SIlver was serious in that aspect. Why should he want more friends if the two he had already were enough to help him? Not that he’d ever really ask for the help that he needed, but should he ask, they’d immediately give. Crystal would not ever want to help him. In fact, she hated him, so why would he be interested in her at all?

“Well, bro, she’s one of my besties, so no way that’s gonna work out. My besties need to be besties, y’know? So you’re gonna have to like her,” Gold then quickly tacked on, “But not too much!” 

“I’ll like who I want to like,” Silver muttered, thinking that he really only wanted to like Blue and Gold, honestly. He didn’t want to lend his heart out to any more people, because the more people that held pieces of him, the sooner the inevitable heartbreak of betrayal would come crashing down upon him. He didn’t think he’d be able to deal with that, honestly. If Gold ended up betraying him, even after these few short days, Silver wasn’t sure that he would really feel like himself anymore. As terrible as it sounded to the person who he had been pretending to be for years, Gold was becoming a large part of his life, and he didn’t want to imagine that life without the grinning idiot.

“Silv,” Gold sighed, “We don’t get to choose who we like and who we don’t like. That’s like, the worst part of life, y’know?” Or Gold wouldn’t like Silver, Silver realized. After all, no one would choose to like the school delinquent. 

“I choose who I like,” Silver responded, thinking he was being serious. After all, he chose to like Gold even though he was an idiot, right?

“Nah, bro. That’s not true. You like me, and if you had a choice, I bet you’d stay as far away from me as possible.” Gold, once more looking at Silver instead of focusing on the road, spoke his words carefully, pushing them out deliberately and in a tone too serious for what he was saying. Him saying these things seriously made them feel… more real.

“I’d choose to be friends with you,” Silver couldn’t hide his smile as he said, “Except for when you’re driving, in which case I  _ would  _ choose to be as far away from you as possible.” He reached his hand up (Why was it shaking?) and pushed Gold’s face (It was still so soft…) back towards the road. “You’re an idiot and you’re seriously going to get both of us killed.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gold muttered, luckily keeping his eyes on the road for once. “But thanks for choosing to like me then, bro.” He obviously still thought that there was no way Silver could choose, which was a preposterous assumption, after all, Silver had full control over his emotions and himself. He was his own person. Although, there were those few times, like the punch, where he lost himself, but he still had control, right? (Right?)

“Thanks for having no choice but to like me,” Silver replied, hoping that Gold understood it as a joke. How did Gold always seem so carefree with his jokes? It wasn’t fair. Silver felt so strained with everything he said, constantly worrying that Gold would take it the wrong way. He was constantly panicking about every little thing, while Gold just seemed to go with the flow, whether that meant taking a hit or just relaxing and playing games. How did he do it?

“Uhh, no problem, bro.” Gold didn’t even bother slowing down the car much as he whipped into his driveway, which was surprisingly empty. “Luckily mum is out with her friends tonight for some sort of spa thing, so she won’t be home to bug us with food and asking me to clean.” Luckily? Silver would kill to have a parent who ‘bugged’ him by offering him food and asking him nicely to do basic chores around the house.

“She seems nice to have around,” he quietly said, hoping that Gold wouldn’t read too much into it. “I like her.” 

“Ah-ha!” Gold exclaimed, shoving a finger in Silver’s direction and causing him to flinch, “I bet you didn’t  _ choose  _ to like my mom, now did you?”

Silver was about to retort that it was, in fact, a conscious decision, but once he actually took the time to think about it, never did he decide in his brain that Gold’s mother was someone he should respect. Instead, he just immediately held some sort of high regard for her. Was that how people normally were **?** He supposed most people probably didn’t have to _choose_ to dislike him. It just came naturally to them, so it must normally be the same way with liking people. Silver couldn’t help but wonder whether or not his father had chosen to hate him, or if it was just a natural result of Silver’s own brokenness.

“I guess not,” he replied, leaning his head forward so that the cascading waterfall of red that his hair was would cover the soft, gentle red that his face was becoming. He didn’t like to admit that Gold, the idiot, was right. It seemed though, the more Silver thought about it, that no matter how stupid and annoying Gold was (But was he?), he seemed to be right more often than Silver.

“See!” Gold’s voice was raised and exuberant, and as he spoke he practically threw the door open, letting the cool evening air drift in. For once, Silver welcomed the soft orange and pink tinted clouds along the horizon. The warm colors of the evening typically signalled a warning signal to Silver - hide, be quiet, make your presence small, they seemed to whisper. Tonight though? Tonight, they were peaceful, beautiful, and made him, for whatever reason, want to curl up in a blanket and watch the colors change with Gold. Not that he wanted Gold in his blanket, or anything. No, the hypothetical blanket was 100%, unequivocally Silver’s and Silver’s alone. No one else was welcome, not even the warm and surprisingly soft boy who would be next to him, freezing and alone outside of his warm haven. He would let Gold sit there, shivering, teeth-chattering, hands no doubt needing warming, before he’d let Gold under a blanket with him, and he definitely didn’t have a single doubt in his mind about that. Definitely not.

Silver said not a word as he got out of the car, closing the door with only enough force as it would take to latch - no more. He wanted to be calm. He wanted to be a more peaceful person overall, honestly. He knew he wasn’t built for it, but he wanted to try, if only to make Gold happy. He shoved his hands in his pockets, nearly walking into the post on Gold’s porch due to how entranced he was with the sunset. Somehow, it was beyond Silver’s comprehension how this happened, words escaped from Silver’s thoughts, jumping out of his mouth and baring themselves to the world.

“Never understood why people liked sunsets before.”

“I guess they’re pretty,” Gold said, turning to appreciate the cotton-candy clouds on the horizon, “The colors kind of remind me of you, all reds and pinks.” 

Now, Silver was sure that Gold didn’t mean it in a bad way. He was sure in his heart, but his brain, the evil thing that it was, immediately shoved up defenses. Protect yourself, it seemed to scream at him. It seemed to always be screaming that at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Red like your hair,” Gold turned to him with a toothy grin, “Pink like your face every time you show me the real you.” 

“Shut up,” Silver mumbled, turning his face downwards. If he kept his head down, and didn’t let Gold look at him, Gold couldn’t realize that that in and of itself was turning his face that pink shade again.

As much as Gold knew nothing, however, he also knew everything, “There you go again. You don’t need to be embarrassed about everything, y’know?”

“M’not,” Silver shoved his words together in an effort to get them out faster. He wasn’t embarrassed. That was preposterous. Why would he be embarrassed that Gold thought sunsets were pretty and he thought they were similar to Silver. Nothing to be embarrassed about there. Maybe something to be mad about, if Gold was implying that Silver was pretty, but nothing to be embarrassed about. 

“Whatever you say, Silv,” Gold’s eyes twinkled as much as his overborn keychain (If he only had one house and a car, how did he have so many keys?) jingled. He obviously was holding in a laugh for Silver’s sake, but honestly? Silver didn’t care. He wanted to hear that laugh. Not enough to ask for it though, as that would get a laugh in and of itself. So, instead, Silver just reached his hand up and pushed his finger into Gold’s squishy face, holding it for a second too long. Why did he love feeling that touch so much when touching anyone else made him feel an immediate need to defend himself?

Silver didn’t really know what to say back, so after forcing himself to retreat his hand back to his own body (Why did he want to keep contact with the raven haired boy so much?), he merely followed Gold into the house in silence. It was strange, seeing Gold’s house dark. He was so used to coming in and seeing Gold’s mother putting about, getting things done or otherwise just brightening up the house with her presence. Maybe that was how all houses were supposed to be, but to Silver it was magical, in a sense.

“You can stay here tonight if you need to,” Gold’s voice was strangely serious, but Silver didn’t want to get into why, so he simply nodded. Not going home sounded absolutely wonderful. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything of the sort though, so instead he just nodded again and went back to staring down at his feet. Gold seemed to understand though, and responded to his nod by saying, “We don’t have a spare room, but you can have my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch. Ma would kill me if she knew I let a guest sleep on the couch, so don’t try to protest. I don’t really have any clothes that would fit you for school tomorrow, but you’re always wearing that jacket anyways, so I don’t think anyone will notice if you wear one of my shirts,” Gold laughed, despite his serious tone. 

Why was he so perfect? Why did Silver simultaneously think he was perfect and an idiot? “Thank you,” Silver forced out. It needed to be said, and as much as Silver wasn’t used to thanking anyone (Mostly for lack of things to thank people for), it felt actually pretty good to say. 

“We have to talk about things eventually though, Silv,” Gold kept his tone low and smooth, like he was talking to a spooked animal. Silver might as well be a spooked animal, he thought, what with his stupidly explosive reactions to literally everything. 

“Do we?” Silver’s voice came out dry and crackly and it wasn’t until he heard that broken voice that he realized he was on the verge of tears, for the umpteenth time that day. He was becoming weaker and weaker. The worst part was was that he was starting to hate his weakness less and less. It felt almost needed after years of being tough for the sake of others not finding out how weak he was underneath it all. He spent so long pretending to be that other person that he was starting to become him, and Gold was chipping away at that bully, dragging out the real Silver underneath.

“Yeah, we do,” Gold missed not a beat with his reply.  “We really do,” he said softly afterwards, more to himself than anything else, “But for now, I think we should have some hot chocolate and sit around being lazy bums instead of studying for anything like responsible students.” 

Hot chocolate. It always sounded so peaceful in the movies, but Silver had never actually been able to partake in that seasonal tradition. When he told Gold as such, the boy nearly lost it. “What the hell, Silv?!” Gold’s words shattered the silence of the still mostly dark house, instantly making it feel more occupied, despite the fact that it still had the same amount of occupants. “Well, we’re making you a deluxe hot chocolate, right this very second.”

Silver had doubts about the ‘deluxe’ hot chocolate.

It turned out that deluxe just meant that Gold poured two packs of powder into one steaming glass of milk, then practically emptied a tin of marshmallows into it. Before Silver could take a sip, though, Gold yanked the mug back out of his hands, the hot liquid coming dangerously close to spilling over. Gold muttered about it not being good enough for Silver’s first hot chocolate, then rummaged around in the fridge for a while, ruining the order of what his mother no doubt put a large chunk of time organizing. The boy came back with a can of cool-whip, and a squeeze-bottle of chocolate syrup, loading Silver’s cup with almost as much whipped cream as there was hot chocolate, then loading the top up with… more chocolate.

Silver couldn’t help but feel like Gold was going overboard, but with how enthusiastic the boy was being, Silver couldn’t be bothered by the excessiveness of it all. When he took a sip of it though, he realized that Gold was right to be so enthusiastic. The drink was rich, warm, and made Silver feel like curling up on the couch and going to sleep. Not in a bad way though, it simply felt… peaceful.

Gold then made himself an equally complex hot chocolate, and the two boys settled down on opposite sides of the loveseat in the living room. Gold kept shooting Silver glances until Silver piped up and said, “You were right. It is good,” in between sips of the miracle drink.

“Told ya so,” Gold replied, setting his drink down on the coffee table and grabbing the remote. “What channel?”

“I don’t have cable,” Silver replied, as if that were a perfectly normal thing. He kept forgetting that he should be more careful letting Gold know how restricted his life was now that the boy knew how much money his father had. He was used to just being able to claim he was poor to everyone who questioned his lack of phone, wi-fi, cable, or anything else. Gold knew that wasn’t true though.

“Silv, that’s a tragedy if I’ve ever heard one,” Gold replied after too long of a pause, obviously wanting to question it, but not wanting to freak the time-bomb of a boy out. 

“I just don’t really see the point in wasting your life staring at a screen hoping to go somewhere else through that,” Silver, for whatever reason, really wanted to watch TV with Gold no matter what he said. It sounded peaceful, the two of them on the loveseat (What a terrible name for a small couch, Silver decided), sitting around and enjoying the uselessness of it all.

“Well, you said you escape through reading. It’s like that, I think. You watch to not be bored, y’know? Sometimes there’s story, sometimes it’s just funny. Characters are like friends sometimes, you want them to do good and you’re routing for them in life. Other times it’s all like ‘damn, I wish he’d die’ and you’re disappointed because shows don’t kill off the dislikable ones very often, y’know? Well, I guess the point is that you don’t know, but you’re about to, bro.” Gold rambled on and on, but honestly, his passion for it made SIlver not care. Silver wasn’t sure he’d ever want to stop hearing Gold talk, and honestly, that was sort of intimidating to the redhead. He didn’t want to grow dependant on anyone, despite how nice it felt, because that meant opening himself up to the pain of disappointment.

Gold couldn’t ever disappoint Silver though, as strong of a resolve as that was. He was too good of a friend, not that Silver really had too much experience in that regard. He’d always taken Blue for granted, as terrible as that sounded. He knew she’d always be there, for whatever reason, but he never let her in too deep in his life for fear that he’d lose his only life preserver in the sea of doubt that was his life. Gold, on the other hand, was more of an island in that sea. He was physically (And permanently?) there, and reaching him meant Silver could let down his guard enough to relax. He no longer had to swim for his life or hold desperately onto Blue for the little support he’d accept, and that was a special feeling. 

So, as he relaxed on the couch, with Gold flipping through channels trying to find something worthy of showing Silver, or so he said, Silver let himself relax in his own skin as well. It felt nice, to not worry about keeping up pretenses. With Gold, life was simpler. Maybe it was because the boy himself was so simple-minded, always being straightforward with Silver. Silver didn’t really think that was true though, because the more he thought about it, the more he realized that the ‘idiot’ was a lot smarter than he’d ever be. Silver would never be able to communicate so effectively with anyone. Silver couldn’t even accept that he really enjoyed being in anyone else’s company, much less enough to allow a delinquent such as himself into his life.

Gold might come across as a hopeless idiot, but honestly, he was more mature than Silver by a long-shot. Silver had a lot to learn from the boy who he so adamantly thought of as an idiot, and he was looking forward to learning those things. 


	16. Routines

Routines were being thrown out the window in Silver’s life left and right. In fact, it was happening so often that the lack of routine was hoenstly becoming his new routine. He was growing more and more used to having nothing to fall back on. In the long run though, Silver enjoyed it. How could he miss his morning routine when it normally consisted of waking up, rushing to shower (After pushing his dresser in front of his bedroom door and locking his bathroom door), then risking a sneak into the kitchen to grab food for the day. After staying over at Gold’s house, he was awoken to a sweet smell wafting up into the room (For some reason, that sweet smell bothered Silver. It couldn’t be that it masked Gold’s scent, which was previously lingering in the boy’s bed, could it? It couldn’t.). 

“Silver, darling,” a soft knock cascaded through the room, and he immediately shot up out of the bed. He had to take a few deep breaths and tell himself that he was okay, that nothing was going to happen to him here, before he opened the door.

“Yes ma’am, I’m sorry if I overslept,” he kept his head bowed, presenting his messy, tangled hair to her instead of his shy, bruised, face.

“Oh, no, you’re fine dear, you’re fine.” She spoke so fluently, like everything was meant to be, and as if there wasn’t some teenage delinquent disturbing the peace in her home, “I just wanted to ask if you’d like to come down and eat a cinnamon roll. Gold is,” as sweet as she was, she sighed and rolled her eyes, “still sleeping, so I figured you could have first pick.”

“O-Oh,” Silver mentally cursed at himself, he just wanted to be normal for this woman. “Thank you,” he wanted to be as fluid and normal as everyone else seemed, but instead his words always came shooting out, mechanical and forced.

“It’s not a worry, dear,” she smiled at him and she started walking down the hall, “Don’t worry about any of it. Any friend of Gold’s is family here, so you don’t have to worry about intruding, okay dear?”

“Oh, umm, o-okay,” Silver, once again, fumbled around with his words, not quite knowing what to say. He wished he really could be part of her family, but that was an unreachable goal, a dream that could never be attained. 

“Relax,” she said in a soothing voice. “You’re at home here, so act like you would at your own home.”

Silver couldn’t help but let out a snort of air at that one. It was quiet, and he immediately regretted it, but he couldn’t help it, honestly. She’d probably kick him out immediately if he acted like he would at his own house. He’d look way too sneaky and even more out of place than he already was - and that was saying something.

“Gold, you need to wake up!” She did a complete 180, yelling down the stairs at her son, sleeping on the couch. He looked so peaceful, one arm wrapped around the pillow, the other hanging off the side of the couch. His hair was all tousled and for once in his life, he wasn’t bouncing around, moving around constantly. He didn’t even budge when his mother yelled at him to get up again. 

“I can try,” Silver said quietly, wanting to be of at least a little bit of help to the lovely woman who had opened her home to him, even after she came home late the previous night and the two boys were sitting on the couch, watching kids movies instead of studying or sleeping.

“Mom, he needs a place to stay tonight, they’re fumigating his house,” Gold had exclaimed, daring daggers at Silver, who tried to speak up and say that wasn’t true before he realized what was happening. Luckily for Silver, Gold’s mother had a heart of… well… Gold. She let him stay when Gold said that, immediately asking him if he needed any dinner, or if there was anything else she could do to make him comfortable in her home. She promised him a home-cooked breakfast, which he kept saying wasn’t necessary. She said that that was nonsense, and any guest deserved only the best. It was nice to feel welcome, for once in his life. 

Now it was time for him to pay her back with whatever he could do, no matter how insignificant it really was in the long run. Silver braced himself, telling himself he could be normal. He could do this normal thing, and not freak out. He walked up to the sleeping boy, wincing a little as he thought of how he’d react in this situation, and he grabbed his shoulders, shaking gently, but firmly. “Wake up, idiot,” he hissed in Gold’s ear.

Silver wished he could say that Gold immediately shot up off the couch, ready to go from the magical reach of Silver. That was far from the truth though. Although the boy did awaken, he did very little in the effort of actually getting up. In fact, all he did was roll over to face the back of the couch, pulling the blankets around him tighter. “Few more minutes,” he mumbled, closing his eyes once more.

Silver wasn’t going to stand for that though. A few more minutes would only succeed in making the boy more tired, didn’t he understand that? As rare as they were for Silver, he knew that proper sleep cycles were important, and drifting off for five more minutes was  _ not _ a proper sleep cycle, goddammit. He wished he could yell that at the sleeping boy, but that would be… awkward. Especially with the fact that Gold’s mother was in the kitchen preparing a breakfast plate for each of the two boys. Silver couldn’t go yelling about sleep cycles while he was a guest in their home.

So, instead, Silver just shook Gold more firmly. He didn’t want to get violent with it. That was actually the last thing he wanted to do. He just needed to be able to convince himself that there was something he could do to help. Anything. He needed to know that he wasn’t entirely freeloading on the wonderful woman that Gold’s mother was. If he had brought a friend over without saying anything, then just expected that friend to stay the night, his father would absolutely lose it. He wouldn’t do anything about it until after the friend had left, of course. He had pretenses to keep up. But, he’d be pissed, and he would defintiely act on that anger once he had Silver alone.

Gold’s mom, on the other hand, was genuinely happy to see Silver when she walked in the night before. After greeting Silver and fussing over the fact that both boys were a little more bruised than before, she said to Gold, “Now, Gold, I’m glad you invited this nice boy over again, but it’s a little late for a school night,” but that was the only thing she said in detriment to Silver. To his face, she said something along the lines of, “Well, Gold just seems so motivated by me asking him to invite you over again, so thank you dear.” What kind of perfect family was Silver being invited into?

Not that he was really being invited in, but Gold’s mother  _ did _ keep telling him to make himself at home, and that her home was his home. She even said that she was as good as his mother while he was in her house, and that was something that Silver couldn’t take lightly. Unlike most things though, it didn’t bear down on him, making him want to crumple under the weight of… well… everything. Instead, it gave him that little bit of lift that he needed to know he’d get through the day without a hitch. Although simply waking up in a bed that smelled of Gold was enough to make him think it was going to be a good day…

No, that sounded wrong. It wasn’t that he really enjoyed the scent of Gold, per se. It was just that it smelled so… safe. Gold smelled of safety? That sounded wrong too. Silver couldn’t really explain it. It was a familiar smell, which made him feel safer waking up in a place that he didn’t immediately recognize. That was all, nothing more, nothing less. It was much nicer waking up to that peacefulness than the usual panic that he was thrown into during his morning routine though. That was a routine he was glad to shatter. 

So, Silver decided that he had to make this morning go as smoothly as he could for Gold’s mother. After all, she probably had a routine that was worth preserving. No sense shattering a good routine, Silver decided. Instead of resorting to some sort of anger or violence as he was ever so used to doing though, Silver quickly grabbed a corner of Gold’s blanket (It did feel really warm and comfortable…) and he yanked it as hard as he could, baring Gold to the outside world. It really wasn’t that cold in the house, but Gold sure did act like it was. Maybe that was because the boy was sleeping, for whatever reason, without a shirt on. 

“Silver, what the hell?” Gold immediately jumped up off the couch though, so for all intensive reasons, it was a success. Silver tossed the blanket back at the boy though, hoping that he would make himself decent so that Silver didn’t have to see him like that. He was surprisingly muscular, which Silver supposed made sense due to how many sports he did, but still… Silver didn’t want to have to see all of that out in the open. It was… disgusting. Yes, that was all it was, and Silver was looking everywhere  _ but _ at Gold, because he didn’t want to see the shirtless boy and that was that. He just, for some reason, kept making the mistake of darting his eyes back to the boy before looking completely away (The better direction) again. 

“There is breakfast in the kitchen,” Silver said quietly, practically dashing away to the haven of the kitchen. There there would be no shirtless boys who Silver’s eyes kept looking at and there would be a wonderful home cooked breakfast. Nothing could be better, especially not being wrapped up in Golds long arms for a morning hug. That would be terrible. Silver couldn’t help but think about it, but only because of how terrible it sounded. He didn’t want to be touched by anyone, especially not the sleepy eyed, still shirtless boy in the living room. 

“Here you go dear,” Gold’s mother said, as if Silver wasn’t coming barreling into the kitchen at an unreasonable rate, “I put extra bacon on there because you’re too skinny for a growing boy.”

“T-thank you,” Silver mumbled, wanting to shovel the food into his mouth quickly, but knowing he needed to be civilized. He loved when he got the chance to get a real meal, and this looked to be one of the best he’d had in a while, other than the dinner Gold’s mother had made the last time he was over. On his plate there was a rather large cinnamon roll, a heaping portion of eggs, and a few slices of bacon. Silver awkwardly walked over to the table, trying to not just lift the plate to his face and steal a bit of egg on the way. He needed to get more used to sitting down and enjoying things, because it really seemed like everything didn’t need to be a rush anymore. He had a chance to sit around and enjoy things, so why not do just that?

Unfortunately, it got a little harder to focus on breakfast when Gold came trudging into the kitchen holding a mug, his plate, and still barren of a shirt. He plopped down across the table from Silver and said, “How are you already so awake, bro?”

“I’m used to waking up fast,” Silver said quietly. He hoped that didn’t stand out too much. He was tired of treading carefully every time he spoke though, so he just let the words out and if they sounded bad then they sounded bad. Gold cared about him enough to not bolt if things sounded bad anyways, or so Silver had found out **.**

Gold, instead of questioning it, just looked at Silver for a few seconds and then started shoveling his food into his face with the fervor that Silver wished he could allow himself to show. After a few bites, Gold said, “I always sleep in,” with food practically falling out of his mouth. How was Gold able to be so blunt, so free with himself? It didn’t seem fair for someone to be so easily… himself…

“I’ve always wanted to sleep in,” Silver replied, still taking tiny nibbles of his food despite his ravenous hunger that was threatening to overtake those small, calculated movements.

“What about on the weekends?” Gold spat out between bites, “I barely even wake up on the weekends.” 

“I wake up early on the weekends,” Silver replied quietly, finishing his bite before speaking again, “Earliest on the weekends, actually.” 

“Why do you torture yourself like that, bro?” Gold laughed a little bit at that, but it really was no laughing matter.

“Self-preservation,” Silver muttered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gold asked, leaning forward, both elbows on the table as he continued to shovel food into his mouth.

“It’s not important,” Silver spat out in reply, keeping his eyes down and away from meeting Gold’s sleepy eyes.

“Everything is important,” Gold replied, getting up from the table and trudging back towards the living room, leaving his empty plate on the table. “Especially with you,” he mumbled, letting out a deep breath.

Silver couldn’t have heard that right though, because why would Gold say something so weird? Especially so… sincerely. “Gold?” Silver wanted the boy to cease his slow trudge towards the living room, turn around, come back, and explain himself. What was that supposed to mean? Silver felt that everything Gold said was important too, but he knew that Gold couldn’t mean it in the same way that Silver did.

“What’s up, bro?” Gold asked, immediately spinning back around to help Silver with every whim. Why was he always so attentive to Silver? What made Silver come across as someone who deserved that? Silver came across to himself as needy, whiny, rude, and utterly worthless. It seemed like Gold viewed him through a different lense than that though. It seemed Gold viewed him through a different lense than the rest of the world did. 

“What did that mean?” Silver asked, ignoring the awkwardness of it all. He fought to ignore the dirty plate on the table that Gold had abandoned, fought to ignore the fact that he still had food to eat, fought to ignore the fact that he was sitting and Gold was standing. 

“What did what mean?” Gold asked, walking back over to the table and leaning down on it, still looking exhausted. Silver didn’t understand how Gold was so tired when he had gotten at least six hours of sleep. Sure, that wasn’t optimal, but Silver had been functioning on less than that for years. 

“You said,” Silver had to force out his words, and he was going to whether he died of embarrassment in the process, “You said that everything was important, which is probably true, but then you said especially with me and I didn’t understand and I want to understand because I feel like I just don’t fit in with you and all I want is for this to work,” Silver ended up spouting out a lot more than what he was trying to force out. He had half a mind to just get up and walk out of the house after that one. Gold was definitely going to think he was off his hinges. He couldn’t just walk out and leave  _ two _ dirty plates on the table for Gold’s mother to clean up though. And there wouldn’t be enough time for him to walk to school from here anyways, so like, that was why he didn’t. Not because he felt like showing his vulnerable side to Gold might have been a good idea. 

“Silv,” Gold sighed, and sat down on the chair next to Silver’s. “You’re an idiot.” Silver didn’t understand. Why was Gold being so callous to him? “You’re an idiot if you think that you don’t fit in with me. We’re bros, and it’ll work forever because there’s no way you’re getting rid of me now, I’m sort of a dork who holds onto people too tight anyways. At least, Crystal says that about me. I’ve been best friends with her since like first grade when, uhh, she punched a girl who was making fun of me. Long story. I used to be the dorky one and Crys used to be badass.” Gold ran a tanned hand through his hair, pulling slightly on the ends. 

As bizarre as that whole scenario sounded, Silver was more hung up on the fact that Gold said that Silver’s friendship insecurities weren’t needed.  How could Gold just believe that things would last forever without a doubt in his mind? Silver wished he could have that sort of confidence in literally anything. Silver wouldn’t even say he trusted the world to always be there when he woke up the next day. There were so many unpredictable things going on in the universe that Silver honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the Earth just vanished overnight. 

Gold, on the other hand, had such a strong faith in something as fragile as their friendship that he claimed it would last forever. Forever was a scary concept. Silver didn’t like thinking in the long-term. He thought more in a series of self-preservation tactics and split second decisions. Forever with Gold though? That didn’t sound too bad, as terrifying as it still was.

“Forever,” he mumbled, not quite realizing it escaped his lips until it was too late.

“Yeah, uhh, sorry about all that nonsense,” Gold said, but he was compltetely wrong, none of it was nonsense, and Silver needed to make sure that Gold knew that, once again, he was the idiot.

“Idiot,” Silver’s mouth spat out with, again, no orders from his mouth, “It’s not nonsense,” his brain filled in the sentence, making things clearer to both Silver and Gold. “I think that having a forever friend is…” Silver couldn’t really figure out what to describe it as. He almost, get this, said magical. What a terrible move that would have been. He’d never have been able to live that one down. “Nice. It’s nice,” he finished his sentence when he realized that Gold was waiting for him to sort out his thoughts. 

“Yeah, bro, I think it’s pretty nice too,” Gold replied, chuckling slightly as he spoke. “Now, I gotta get ready to go to school before my mom flips though, we’ll talk about this later, okay?”

“Okay,” Silver responded, going back to his nibbling away at his breakfast. He went back to his nibbling with a huge grin on his face though, one he couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard he tried. He didn’t really want to try to get rid of the smile though. It stood testament to his wonderful friendship with Gold, one which was growing crazily and out of control. It didn’t make sense to Silver that Gold wanted this friendship, but the way it was going felt amazing.

Silver finished up his breakfast, gathered up the plates from the table, and awkwardly carried them into the kitchen. He was, for some reason, terrified of dropping the dishes. What if he were to ruin everything that he’d been working on by creating tension in the household? He seemed to create tension in most households, after all. Doing the dishes went by without a hitch though, as it always did. Silver was used to attempting to do chores quietly, quickly, and properly though, so it made no sense that he was worried about it.

It wasn’t long before Gold came trotting down the stairs, looking a lot more awake already. He was dressed in his typical yellow and black jacket, complete with the hat that he always had to take off once he got to school. He threw a balled up piece of fabric at Silver, and Silver didn’t even flinch, he just caught it as any sane person would. “Figured you’d need something to wear that you didn’t sleep in,” Gold grinned at Silver as he shook out the shirt.  It was okay enough, just a black shirt with some logo on it. It wasn’t immediately seen as some horrendous thing though, so Silver supposed he could wear it, as long as he kept his jacket on and zipped up.

Silver changed in the bathroom as quickly as he could, not wanting to get in the way of the morning routine. The morning routine obviously wasn’t in peril from him possibly taking a few minutes longer though, as when Silver walked back out of the bathroom, Gold was laying back down on the couch, curled up once more under his blankets. “Bro, let’s just not go to school today and we can sleep on the couch,” Gold mumbled, somehow almost back to sleep.

“T-Together?” Silver sputtered out, confused by what Gold was suggesting. What the hell was wrong with him? Why would he ask Silver to get under the blankets with him? More importantly, what was wrong with  _ Silver? _ Why did it sound like such a great day?

“I mean, yeah,” Gold mumbled sleepily, “I wouldn’t skip school alone.” Gold paused a second, then said, “Actually, I would skip school alone it’s just not as fun.”

“Your mom would kill me,” Silver said, “And I can’t miss another day of school. They call home when you miss school, you know?”

“Yeah yeah,” Gold said, pulling the blankets closer to his body, “I guess we should go to school then?” 

“Let’s go,” Silver replied quietly. He didn’t want to infringe on Gold’s relaxation, but he really couldn’t have the school calling his father and saying he wasn’t there. Silver’s dad had an image to keep up, and if Silver were to get in the way of that image, he’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble. 

“Ughhh, Silv, bro, I don’t want to go,” Gold groaned, but he still rolled his legs over the edge of the couch and stood up. “The only good class is theater, but you don’t go. There’s something wrong with you if you don’t think that class is fun,” Gold walked towards the door, grabbing his keys from a bowl on a table by the door.

“Eusine is crazy,” Silver grumbled, “I don’t ever want to go back to his class. Especially after he called my hair beauitful that one time. What a creep,” Silver didn’t want to get on Gold’s bad side by dissing Gold’s favorite teacher, but he was ready to tell the truth, and he was planning on keeping that resolve no matter what.

“Well he wasn’t wrong,” Gold replied, as if that weren’t a completely terrifying and weird thing for him to say. What the hell was he thinking, argeeing with the creep of a theater teacher?

“What the hell?” Silver responded idignantly. “My hair isn’t--”

“Don’t you dare lie to yourself and me all at the same time, bro. You obviously take hella care of your hair. The girls at school wish they could have the hair you do,” Gold somehow exuded confidence and spouted words that Silver could never speak in a million years. Gold made the things that Silver was terrified to even think about seem like they were the simplest of things. Why was Gold so smooth in everything he said?

“I-I don’t do any such things, It’s just, I just like,” Silver couldn’t get his brain to make his words work. “My dad likes when I look proper,” he spat out quickly. “And I like the long hair, it’s safer feeling.” 

“Well I don’t think what he wants is important,” Gold said, immediately reaching over and rubbing the top of Silver’s head forcefully. Silver whipped his head away, shaking it around trying to remove the horrible feeling of having been touched. 

“Don’t do that,” Silver huffed at Gold. He had been being so good about leaving Silver alone and not touching him. It was starting to seem like Gold had seriously understood that Silver really didn’t want to be touched. No. All of that was down the drain. “Don’t touch me, dammit,” Silver hissed through his teeth, ducking and rubbing his own hair to replace the feeling of his own safety. 

“I’m sorry, Silv bro,” Gold mumbled, rubbing the back of his head, “I always forget that that’s like… uhh… a thing, y’know?” For every bit that Gold was a great friend, he was also somewhat of an asshole. How could he keep forgetting that Silver didn’t like to be touched? It was such a spastic, drastic evasion with which Silver reacted, so how was it that Gold didn’t immediately anticipate that motion?

“Just don’t,” Silver muttered, distancing himself from the boy that he longer to be closer to. Maybe it wasn’t Gold who was the problem. Maybe it was instead Silver’s antsiness that got in the way of everything. After all, Gold’s motions were the ones that were accepted by society, and Silver’s reactions would be seen as overreactions by anyone not in his situation. In fact, they were honestly kind of telling - if he didn’t have the convenient excuse that he was just so used to fighting that he needed to always be on guard for a potential fight. 

“I won’t,” Gold softly spoke his words, as if coaxing a rabid cat out from under a car. “I’m just normally a touchy guy, y’know?” 

“I’m normally not,” Silver responded, his voice softening up slightly. After all, there is a reason that soft voices are used to lull savage beasts from their fighting stance. It was soothing to hear Gold’s tones so hushed and calm in contrast to his usual loud, overarching voice that boomed through hallways and carried through even the thickest of doors. It was almost as if every time Gold spoke, he was speaking for an audience. It was as if he were always prepared for people to be listening to them, so he had to speak at a volume at which every potential listener could claim no qualm with his speaking habits. Sometimes, Silver wished that he could command that kind of respect from people around him. Instead, he beat it out of them. 

When Gold opened his mouth to speak, Silver decided that he couldn’t leave his sentence at that though. Sure, he wasn’t normally a touchy person. He wasn’t normally the type to poke people’s faces and marvel at the softness of them (But seriously, how was Gold’s face so… squishy?). He wasn’t normally the kind to wonder what it would feel like to be wrapped up in someone else’s arms. In fact, the thought normally repulsed him. He’d rather keep his distance. Keep his distance, keep his silence, keep his routines, and keep his walls up - that was how he normally lived. But Gold made him want to change all of that, starting with being more open of a person. “But your touch is okay enough, I guess, or whatever,” Silver muttered, keeping his eyes down at his tattered old boots instead of making eye contact with Gold. 

“Bro high five?” Gold asked, holding out his hand in front of Silver. Silver longed to take that hand and hold it close. He wanted to feel how much Gold wanted to actually be there with him. He wanted to feel like he was physically there, and like he was more important than that phone that Gold was always checking. Instead, he just braced himself for the icy plunge that was the unknown of physically interacting with someone else, and he (perhaps a bit too slowly) made a resounding clap between the two of their hands. His hand lingered on the site of impact for just a bit too long afterwards - long enough that Gold was the one to pull back his hand from the high five.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” Silver mumbled as he looked up at the smiling face of the boy with a black eye. “Uhhh, like, yesterday. With my fist, not uhh, just now, with my hand,” Silver pointed at his hand as he spoke, flushing with embarassment the longer he rambled… Of  _ course _ Gold knew what he meant, but there was something else he needed to know as well. I’m not going to hit anyone else though.” Silver really wanted Gold to know that he wasn’t planning on getting in fights. Surprisingly enough, it was Gold’s reputation that he was worried about. For as much as Silver’s father always went on about his own reputation and how it would plummet should the world find out he had raised a useless degenerate of a son who only knew how to solve problems the barbaric way of the fist, Silver never really thought anyone’s reputation should be considered that important. Gold’s reputation though? That was one that Silver actually thought was worth preserving. He wanted everyone to continue to think of Gold as the class clown. He wanted them to continue to think of him as the jock with no brains (Although that one wasn’t quite a compliment.) He wanted them to think of him as a jokester. He was afraid that with him hanging around, people would start to instead think of Gold as somewhat of a troublemaker himself. After all, usually the only people who hung out with delinquents were other delinquents. 

“That sounds like a great idea, Silv bro,” Gold’s words sounded almost as if they were stumbled through, but he spoke them with such confidence that Silver wasn’t sure it was a mistake at all. Instead of just choosing one nickname or the other, Gold just used both, and honestly, as dorky as it was of Gold, Silver loved every bit of it. He just wished he was a little more fluent in that aspect.

“I don’t want to hurt people,” Silver responded. He honestly never wanted to hurt people. He knew how it felt to wake up with joints aching and muscles sore. He knew what it felt like to wake up feeling like rolling out of bed would be the death of him. Not rolling out of bed in time was more likely to be the death of him though, and he always knew it. Silver didn’t ever really  _ want _ to inflict that upon others, but he really had no choice. Or rather, he thought he had no choice. Now though, he did have a choice, and it was a very obvious one at that. He chose his friendship with Gold over any false pretenses that he might have built up around himself in the past. Gold was more important than routine. Gold was more important than the foundations for a lonely life Silver had constructed for himself. Gold was way more important than the walls Silver had been working on for years and years, nurturing them to protect him from the rest of the outside world. He didn’t need protection if Gold was there to help him through all of the dangers that the world had to offer. 

  “Then why do you do it?” Gold’s words stung, but they were spoken calmly, conversationally. He wasn’t accusing Silver. He wasn’t accusing Silver. Silver had to relay that information from one part of his brain to another. As usual, his brain was at war with itself. One side had not a doubt that Gold wasn’t accusing him. The other side was working hard to put those barriers back up though. Why let him in? Why chance getting his only hope that he’d had in way too long destroyed? 

“It’s complicated,” Silver muttered. What was he supposed to tell Gold? He couldn’t tell him that he had bruises to cover up and aches to explain. He couldn’t tell him that he felt safer when no one wanted to be close to him because then there was less chance of his secrets getting out and his already broken and crushed heart getting further damaged. So what  _ could _ he tell him?

“We have a long enough drive to school,” Gold said, jingling his keys, “If you explain, I’ll actually take it slow for once.”

“I can’t explain,” Silver practically whispered. He couldn’t though. He couldn’t explain, because if he were to explain all of that to Gold, Gold would know his deepest secret. How could he let someone in, especially someone he only just met a few days prior? Sure, Gold was the closest thing Silver had to a conifdante, but that didn’t mean he could dump years of abuse on the poor boy. “I just can’t,” Silver spat out, not even noticing until then that he was shaking slightly and tears were welling up in his eyes. What was he to do when he couldn’t do the one thing Gold asked of him.

“Silv, bro,” Gold’s words were once more soft and comforting. Why did every word that escaped that boy’s mouth make Silver feel so… calm… “You know I wouldn’t ever think like, uhh, poorly of you or anything stupid like that, right? I’m just curious. I figure you have some reasons that are sort of… important to you? I don’t know. You just don’t come across to me as the type of person who really wants to be in all the fights you’re in, but you  _ were _ the one who attacked Pearl yesterday in homeroom. I mean, I get that the guy can be kind of annoying, but still, no need to break his nose.” There Gold went, as they climbed into car, breaking back down into that confident boy that Silver knew and appreciated. Silver wished he had so much to say that he’d just… zig zag wildly through so many topics at once. If he were to say it out loud, it’d probably sound like an insult, but he really respected how much Gold had to say. If only Silver could make himself say the few things that he wanted to say.

“Pearl is an ass,” Silver spat out, “He’s always so  _ loud _ , and he never cares about anyone else’s space or needs, just his own.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Gold said, already breaking his semi-promise of saying he’d drive safe for once, “He’s always standing up his buddy in theater, even when they go on and on and on and take up the stage for like, the whole class with their stupid little improv comedy skits.”

“Another reason I’ll never go to that godforsaken hell pit of a class,” Silver muttered. He didn’t mean it to be funny, but based on Gold’s life shaking chuckles, yet another one of his mannerisms ended up being the laughing stock of the car. 

“It’s seriously not that bad,” Gold responded, once his chuckles had subsided. “Eusine lets us put on little plays and stuff and honestly, it’s just refreshing to not sit around ignoring everything a teacher is saying for once in the day. Breaks the monotony, y’know? Although I do still ignore everything he tells me to do...”

“I like the monotony,” Silver mumbled. Silver, it turns out, did not like the monotony. Usually his days felt a lot less monotonous, what with there always being a threat of a fight around the horizon. But that day? No, Silver was finally starting to realize why everyone hated going to school. When all there was to do was pay attention in classes in which he usually already knew most of the information, things got quite dull quite quickly. When time for fifth period came around, Silver made a beeline for the library, as he always did, because he refused to go to theater. Theater sounded like a terrible idea. Theater  _ was _ a terrible idea.

However, when Silver spun around, immediately guarding his face in preparation for a fight when some kid bumped into him, he realized that he really did need something to break the monotony. He figured that theater couldn’t be worse for him than a fight, especially if it meant that he got to be with Gold, who it turned out was  _ only _ in his homeroom. So, instead of heading to the library to sulk alone, Silver turned around and headed for the dreaded theater. 


	17. The Theater

When Silver got to the theater room and saw the teacher wearing a purple suit, cape, and humongous red bowtie waiting for him inside, he turned right back around and decided that, rather than interact with that man, that he’d wait outside for Gold. He waited, and he waited. He waited until after the bell rang, but it wasn’t until a few minutes after that that Gold came running up. 

“Oh, uhhh, you’re here,” Gold said, rubbing the back of his head and trying to hide the fact that he was sort of out of breath.

“Yeah, idiot,” Silver mumbled, “I came because you never stop talking about how great it is, or whatever.” Silver couldn’t tell Gold that the real reason that he had to come to theater was that he just needed to see Gold’s stupid grin to keep him from wanting to fight the actually stupid people that surrounded him day in and day out. And he definitely couldn’t tell Gold that for whatever reason, he felt empty when he was away from him. Why did everything seem to fade to black and white, a blur that Silver was merely viewing from afar instead of being a part of, when Gold was away? The second he was back with Gold though, it was like he was rejoining his body and coming back together in his mind. Everything seemed to set into place, and Silver felt like he was really present for the first time since Gold and he had separated after homeroom that morning. With Gold, things seemed like they had purpose. Without him, things seemed like they weren’t real, and it was only with the clarity Silver seemed to gain from Gold that he realized how meaningless his life was before. Gold couldn’t know that though, not a chance in hell that Gold could learn that. 

“Oh, well, uhhh, I totally wasn’t just rummaging through the library and various bathrooms looking for you to drag you here, or anything like that. So don’t get any stupid ideas in your head, okay bro?” Gold gave a deep laugh, then swung the door open before Silver could politely inform him that he wasn’t thinking any such thing until Gold gave himself away. Or… wait… Was that the point? Silver didn’t really understand the boy’s way of life. Why would he word it like that? 

“Well Hello!” Euisine, the crazy man who some idiot allowed to be a teacher, bellowed when the two of them entered. Silver was unabashedly trying to use Gold as a sort of meat shield, hoping that Eusine wouldn’t call him out on his previous non-attendance. He was, as per usual, a complete failure in that. “I see you’ve finally graced us with your presence, Mr. ----”

“It’s just Silver,” Silver spat out, not wanting anyone to hear the name that Eusine was about to bellow across the classroom. Sure, most teachers mumbled his name while they took roll, but Silver would always just shoot glares pointedly at anyone who wanted to make snide comments about his name being the same as the man who they saw as a great person for making some stupid little phones. 

“Okay, well, Just-Silver,” Eusine said, his voice still magnified in a much more deliberate way than Gold’s naturally loud tone, “I think you need to just come on up on stage, let’s see what you’ve got.”

At that, Silver spun around on his heels and went to walk right back out the door. He would have left too, damn it all, if Gold hadn’t found a loophole in their system and grabbed his sleeve. Silver still flinched and yanked his arm free immediately, but it wasn’t quite as repulsive as it would have been had Gold grabbed his arm. (Why did Silver feel a pang of sadness that that wasn’t what the boy did, though?)

“C’mon, Silv,” Gold whispered, “Let’s go up there, it’ll be fun. He takes these things way too seriously, which makes it way better when I-- Well, just c’mon, follow my lead.” Gold kept his voice down, but his laugh still escaped deep and hearty. Silver, as much as he didn’t want to be there at all, decided that it was, again, worth it if he got to be with Gold. 

“Silv’s gonna need a script, Mr. Eusine,” Gold said, speaking to the man in the most honeyed voice that Silver had ever heard. “He doesn’t have your natural acting brilliance,” Gold said in an earnest voice, but turned towards Silver with an over exaggerated wink. What was going on?

“Ahhh, I’m sure we’ll draw out his inner artist,” Eusine said, rummaging through an envelope and pulling out a wrinkled piece of paper, which he handed to Silver with an exaggerated bow and a swoop of his cape. 

Silver reached for the paper, just barely grabbing it between two gloved fingers and yanking it back immediately, withdrawing from the reach of the overanimated teacher. What had he gotten himself into? Gold beckoned him to climb the stairs to the stage, so Silver reluctantly followed. He kept his back turned to the class until Gold whispered, “Go stand over there and just let me do the talking at first.” 

So, Silver walked in the general direction that Gold told him to. When he turned around though, and saw all of those faces staring back up at him though (Including Pearl’s face, bandaged for his broken nose), Silver just… froze. He knew that Gold was speaking. He was aware that Gold had gestured towards him. He was acutely aware that everyone laughed (It was probably at him, wasn’t it?) But he couldn’t bring himself to look at the crumpled and tattered paper that he was clutching between his fingers. He just kept staring out at that sea of people who were staring back up at him. He had fought a lot of them, but other than that, he knew none of them. He knew only the vague things that had caused him to fight with the ones who he had beaten.

Silver didn’t move for so long that Gold came walking over to him, waving a hand in his face. “Maybe this wasn’t the best idea,” he heard the voice of his one friend quietly wash over him, almost dragging him from his near-trance. “C’mon, bro, let’s just watch for today, okay?” Gold then did the most preposterous thing. Silver was immediately snapped from his thoughts by it, because it was just so… strange. Gold, get this, held out his hand as if Silver were going to take it.

Instead, Silver just stared at it. Why did part of him want to go along with it. It wasn’t like Silver wasn’t wearing gloves, so it’d be fine (Why did he wish that he didn’t have the gloves on?). When Gold shook his hand a little, as if to reoffer it to Silver though, Silver felt as if he had no choice. Silver never reacted well to not having a choice in things. He took a few steps back, to which Gold said something that he really couldn’t focus on. He needed to distance himself before he did something stupid in front of literally the whole class. Everyone was still staring at him. Everyone was staring at him as he stared at Gold’s hand. What would they say if he were to have taken it? Silver wasn’t sure he could keep to his commitment of not fighting should there be unsavory rumors about him floating through the school.

Silver took a few more steps backwards, at which point Gold immediately ran towards him. Why was he doing that? Silver had no time to react, so of course he went to take another step backwards, only to be met with the edge of the stage, and thin air beneath his foot. Before Silver could register what was happening, he was on the floor, with an incredible pain in the back of his head and the entire class crowding around him. It was, of course, an utter disaster. 

“Hey, get back,” he heard Gold’s voice ring throughout the room. “Seriously, get back, I got this.” Silver wanted to get up and run out of the room. He wanted to hide his shame, and never return to the class which he had initially vowed to never go to in the first place. He just really felt like not moving at all though. The fall didn’t feel as if it had broken any bones (Silver knew what broken bones felt like), but he was certainly winded, so he decided to just wait it out, let everyone stare at him, and let Gold tend to him.

“Silv, you okay?” Gold asked, squatting down next to him.

“I’m fine, idiot,” Silver mumbled, sitting up and reaching a hand up to rub the back of his head where he hit it, “You shouldn’t have run at me like that.” He tried to speak quiet enough where no one else in the class could hear, but that was sort of hard with how close they all still were despite Gold’s request for them to get back.

“Gold, kindly escort him to the nurse, please,” Eusine called out, surprisingly far away for the fact that he was supposed to be the authority figure in the room. 

“That won’t be necessary,” Silver quickly replied, forcing himself to get up on his aching feet and right himself. If he were to go to the nurse, they’d probably call his father. They’d done it before, and he didn't want to deal with those repercussions. The nurse also always suspicious of his bruises, claiming that they weren’t typical to his fight. The jolly pink haired woman always seemed to see right through Silver, but for some reason, nothing ever came of it. Maybe once she found out who his father was she just decided that Silver was, in fact, a delinquent. A lot of people came to that deduction, after all.

“No! I insist! I cannot have any of my students harmed on my hour. Now, off. Off to the nurse with the two of you,” Eusine spun around, grabbing the edges of his cape as he did so, the brandished a slip of paper from his folder in the process, holding it out to Gold. “Now make sure he gets to the nurse safe and sound,” then stage whispered, “I think he has a concussion.” 

“I don’t have a concussion,” Silver muttered, yanking the slip from Eusine’s hand and walking towards the door. Before he could get far, a hand had snaked its way around his upper arm. Silver froze. It wasn’t Gold. It wasn’t Gold. He couldn’t hit anyone. He had to keep his cool. Silver felt his heart speeding up and his breathing converting to short, rapid, breaths. He yanked his arm, hard, in an attempt to break the grip of the crazy teacher on his arm, but the grip was solid. “Let go.” Silver tried to speak in a calm, level voice, but he was pretty sure it came out shaky and wild. When Eusine didn’t listen, Silver yanked his arm again, and again. It had only been a couple seconds but it felt like so much longer. Why wouldn’t the man relinquish Silver’s arm.

“Let Gold show you to the nurse, okay?” Eusine spoke in that same, staged, hearty tone, as if Silver were a child who was also hard of hearing. Silver couldn’t stand it. The man wouldn’t let go of his arm and Silver was trapped. He had to keep his body under control though. He couldn’t lash out and hit a teacher. A  _ teacher _ . As crazy as the man was, he was still Silver’s teacher, and if he were to assault him, he wasn’t sure there would be anything even the threat of his father’s money could do to save him from alternative school. He couldn’t have cared less a few days ago about what school he went to, but now he couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t risk it because what was the point if it meant being separated from Gold?

“I will, just let go of my arm. Now.” Silver glared at the man, succeeding in keeping his voice level that time.

Instead of releasing him that instant, however, Eusine laughed and said, “What a feisty one you are, fiery to match your hair.”

“Eusine, let go of him. Now.” Gold said, stepping between the two of them and pushing the man’s arm down. From that, Eusine released his grip. Silver’s skin was still crawling from the touch though. It felt like the touch was embedded in his skin, available for all to see. He couldn’t shake the feeling, no matter how hard he physically shook his arm. Gold, ignoring Eusine’s words about him being just as feisty, “You okay Silv?” Gold nodded his head towards the door, “Let’s go.” 

Silver was going to argue that he couldn’t go to the nurse, that he just couldn’t, but as he looked around the room at all the people staring (Some glaring, like Pearl and his two friends on either side of him), he realized that he needed to be out of the room as soon as possible. Sure, that’d give people the chance to gossip about him, but it would also give him a chance to cool down. It would give him a chance to quell his thoughts and sink back into the mindset that he thought might truly be the real him again. He was too heated for the moment, so all he did was nod and follow the boy out, his own hand still tracing the spot where Eusine held him captive. It felt foreign.

“Hey, you okay?” Gold asked in a hushed tone as soon as they were out of the room, running a hand through his hair and looking around quickly, almost as if he were nervous. Why would he be nervous? When Silver couldn’t muster up an answer, Gold looked at him and said, “Look, let’s just go to the library, we can sit there for the rest of fifth, okay?”

Silver nodded curtly, still rubbing his arm. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling of contamination which his arm held. “It feels wrong,” Silver mumbled. When Gold turned around, about to question him, Silver just pointed at his forearm. “Doesn’t feel like mine.” 

“Silv, it’s okay,” Gold sighed, but he didn’t sound frustrated with Silver. “Eusine isn’t even supposed to touch students, that pissed me off. I mean, what the hell is up with him, usually he’s fun to mess with, but he took it a bit too far. You asked him to stop, so I don’t see why he couldn’t just, I don’t know, maybe listen to someone else’s ideas for once?” Gold seemed so… upset. For Silver. Why? Why was Silver worth the effort it took for the boy to be mad?

“It’s fine,” Silver muttered, wishing that his lies could convince the boy that it truly was fine. Silver hated saying untrue things to Gold, but he hated seeing the boy so upset even more. Silver didn’t think that he was worth the anger that was emanating from Gold. After all, people normally would see grabbing someone’s arm to keep them from walking away as normal. Rude, but normal. With Silver, normal things were abnormal and the abnormal was his everyday, it seemed. 

“No, it’s not. I’m going to talk to Oak about this one,” Gold muttered, walking with determination towards the office. Silver didn’t want the boy to get in trouble for bringing up such a trivial matter with the principal though.

“Gold, he isn’t going to listen. I’m pretty sure he hates me,” Silver wasn’t really sure how the old man saw him. As much trouble as Silver caused, the man always ended up asking Silver questions about if he was happy at home and other stupid, dangerous questions every time Silver was sent to his office.They usually just made him see the man in charge of discipline, who really did hate Silver. Gold didn’t need to barge into the office of the principal though, not for Silver. No matter how happy the man always seemed to be, he couldn’t be okay with students barging in unannounced and informing him of faults they found in his staff. 

It turned out that he was okay with this, and he actually encouraged it. Silver, as per usual, was completely wrong. 

The old man furrowed his brow while Gold emphatically relayed the story to him, ending it with, “And y’know, that’s just not cool. Teachers aren’t supposed to touch students, and especially not hold them back like that!” He spoke so casually even though the man he was speaking to was the one in charge of the whole school. Silver once again wished he could have that ease of just… being himself. 

“That is most unacceptable,” the principal responded, “And it’s not the first time Mr. Eusine has overstepped his boundaries here. I’ll have a stern talking to with him, and if you boys would like, we can sort out to have you moved to a class more conducive to your learning styles?”

He looked right at Silver when he spoke of changing their schedules… Almost as if he knew that Silver never went to theatre to begin with. Eusine never turned in his attendance sheets (Or bothered to fill them out) though, so he wasn’t sure how the old man really could know. “Can I just have a study period?” Silver asked, refusing to meet the man’s eye. “I don’t have a lot of time to do homework at home.” 

“Well, that’s quite a conundrum,” the principal responded, chuckling a little bit, “I can arrange for that to happen. How about you, Gold?” 

For whatever reason, Gold seemed to be on quite friendly terms with the principal, despite the boy’s academic delinquency. He just laughed and said, “Nah, I like theater, I just wish Eusine wouldn’t take it so seriously all the time.”

“ _ Mr _ . Eusine,” Oak corrected slyly, “Takes his class very seriously indeed. We’ve all told him to lighten up and let the students put on whatever plays they like.”

“Well, thanks for moving Silv to a different class,” Gold said, taking a not so subtle step backwards towards the door. “But I’m pretty sure the lunch bell is about to ring, and like… we’re right next to the lunch room here, so Silv and I are gonna go now so we can get at the front of the lines.”

Silver followed his friend, saying a curt goodbye to the principal, who he was still convinced hated him, despite all the signs pointing to that being untrue. He didn’t really care what time they got to the lunchroom, seeing as he wasn’t going to be buying any food anyways, but it seemed to be important to Gold, so he followed after diligently, even running a little to keep up with the boy’s huge strides once the bell rang and the tsunami of hungry students flushed out of the classrooms down the hall. They were, in fact, the first ones in line for the terrible cafeteria food that smelled, surprisingly, delicious. Gold grabbed a tray for himself and went to grab one for Silver as well. Silver immediately spat out, “I don’t need one, I can’t eat here.”

“Why not?” Gold asked, still grabbing a tray, for lack of knowing what else to do, Silver supposed. 

“I don’t have money for food,’ Silver mumbled, hiding his face behind his hair once more as he spoke. It was embarrassing to admit that despite his father’s incredible wealth, Silver couldn’t even afford a measly school lunch. 

“But…” Gold started to say something that was probably along the lines of Silver’s own thoughts, but instead, he said, “Well, today you’re eating lunch. I’ve got a little extra cash in my account anyways, for ice cream and stuff, so you can use that and get lunch.”

Silver was going to deny Gold’s help, and argue that he just wasn’t hungry. The second he was about to though, his stomach let out a little growl, and Silver had to admit that eating a proper lunch for once  _ did _ sound nice. So, he nodded, said, “I’ll pay you back sometime,” and took the tray.

During the time it took the two boys to sort this out, a few people behind them starting bemoaning how slow the line was moving. It was entirely because of Silver and Gold and, for once, instead of feeling absolutely ashamed about getting in other people’s ways, Silver smugly thought that they could wait because he was having the time of his life just being with Gold, and that was the only thing that was important to him. He took his tray and didn’t even flinch when the lunch lady harshly asked him if he wanted a hamburger or chicken. He supposed that neither was really what she claimed it was, so just went for the chicken patty. He also ended up getting some fries, an apple, and milk with his lunch. It was rather nice to not have to worry about watching everyone else eat while he himself was sitting there hungry, though.

Silver and Gold, being the first ones out of the line, got their pick of most of the seats. Sure, a lot of people had come in and dropped their bags at the spots where they wanted to sit before going to the ever growing line, but they were still able to snag a couple of window seats, with Gold throwing his bag on a third spot, claiming that Crystal would kill him if he didn’t save her a seat. This was high school, Silver realized. This was the life that most people were living day to day, and as much as they lamented it so frequently as boring, lame, and overall a disappoint, to Silver, it was one of the most wonderful things in the world. Sure, classes turned out to be boring and not fighting people was surprisingly hard, but it was worth it if he got to just… be a normal person for a little bit.

He wasn’t really normal, but he was living the normal life. He was living a mundane, absolutely normal life, but to him it was exhilarating. Every story that Gold told him made him shake with laughter, sometimes at the sheer stupidity of the things Gold had done, sometimes because it was genuinely funny. It was just so peaceful to be able to sit there with Gold (And eventually Crystal) and eat a meal that wasn’t in some run-down, dinky restaurant that Silver always seemed to explode in.  

Silver felt a pang of disappointment in his heart when he heard the usually much anticipated bell signal the end of their lunch period. He was going to have to walk out of that bliss and back into the loneliness that seemed to persist in all of his classes in which he didn’t have Gold, which was, save for theater (Which he had no longer), all of them. 

The rest of the school day dragged on and on and on. History, Math, and English all seemed so boring when he didn’t have to worry about things like getting in fights and defending himself. Sure, he did still have the threat that someone he had threatened or fought in the past would try to enact revenge on him, but honestly, who would do that? Pearl? Pearl was too much of a baby to do anything other than get his friends to glare at Silver and talk loudly about how falling off of the stage couldn’t be as bad as having your nose beaten in. He had a fair point. Silver really had done a number on the boy, which he genuinely felt bad for, especially because all Pearl did to deserve it was exist.

Silver found himself simultaneously wishing that the classes would drag on and on and wishing they would end. He wanted them to end because he was just so bored sitting there through all of the redundant information and questions from people who were too stupid to understand basic concepts, but he didn’t want the classes to end because come the end of eighth period, Silver would be sent on his death march to the busses, where he would be shuttled to a place no one should ever have to go. 

He wanted to hope that Gold would come running up to him. He wanted to hope that Gold would bring him back to the slice of heaven that he called home, and invite him to stay as long as he needed. He wanted Gold to come and lead him away from danger, as the boy seemed to always do. But he wasn’t going to impose himself upon Gold’s mother. He wasn’t going to force his way into their lives and create an opening for him to have somewhere safe to go. He wasn’t going to break down all that trust that he had been working on building with Gold by convincing the boy that Silver was only using him for his house, food, and money. Silver just wanted to be with him, because with Gold everything was simple, black and white. It was easier for SIlver to be himself and easier for him to see the world as it was around him instead of seeing it as something that was always out to get him. He still felt like the world was out to get him most times, but with Gold, there was that glimmer of hope that maybe he, Silver, could live a happy, safe, and healthy life. Maybe even Silver could find a home with Gold.

But he couldn’t find that home by forcing his way in. He had a house to go home to. A house that definitely wasn’t his home. Going with Gold surprisingly did feel like what he always imagined what going home  _ should  _ feel like. He longed for that on a daily basis. How nice it would feel to have the treat of getting to relax after a long day at school. Maybe sit at the table and get his homework done, then play some games with Gold, then eat a hearty dinner. It’d be practically the perfect life. Instead, he was getting on the bus to take him to a house in which he’d need to practically sneak in through the window and hide in his closet to really feel safe enough to relax just a bit. Even then, he was always scared that something would happen and he’d be stuck in his closet, back against the wall with nowhere to run. It was a terrible feeling, knowing that that was his fate should he get on the bus.

But he had no choice. He couldn’t seek Gold out  _ again _ and ask him to take him home with him. His mother wouldn’t buy that Silver’s house was still fumigating. He wasn’t even sure if she really believed that his house was fumigating the night before, she just knew that he needed a place to stay, he supposed, because why else would someone let a practical stranger sleep in their house, on a school night no less. 

His father wouldn’t ever allow him to have friends over on a school night, even if he were allowed to have friends over. If he ever had friends before, that is. Sure, Blue had tried to come over a few times, but SIlver always managed to chase her away from the idea before anything truly became of it. “My dad has an important business call tonight,” he’d say, offering to come to her place instead. “We have family visiting.” “My room isn’t neat enough to have friends over.” “My dad is out of town and doesn’t want me having friends over in his absence.” - All good excuses that he’d used in the past to dissuade Blue from coming to his house. Luckily for him, she seemed to catch on and just stopped asking altogether at some point. He felt a little bad, that he had completely chased her away from that wanting, but it was necessary for his own self-preservation to keep her as far away from his father as possible. She’d probably recognize him, and he’d realize that someone cared about Silver and seek to destroy that. It’d be a losing situation all in all. 

Why was Gold’s mom so accepting of everyone? How was she so accepting of everyone? She hadn’t even gotten too upset at Gold for the black eye. All she’d done was freak out worrying about him, and ask what happened. Gold had a story at the ready, unsurprisingly. He told he that they were in theater and he had been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a spin and the emphatic raise of a hand, bam, black eye. Or at least, that’s how he explained it to her. For some reason, Silver just went along with it instead of admitting his guilt to the woman. Although, what was he supposed to say, “Sorry, ma’am, I know I’m a guest in your home, but I just wanted to let you know that I punched your son today and gave him a black eye. Lovely weather we’re having, huh?” No. It wasn’t something that he could just casually mention to her, so he left it at Gold’s story, as guilty as it sort of made him feel. 

Lost in his thoughts, Silver realized he had walked past his bus, so he doubled back to get on before it left. WIth each step he took, he found himself hoping more and more that Gold would come bursting through the crowd yelling, “Silv bro? Silv bro?” But, as things typically work, his dreams didn’t come true and Gold didn’t come to save him. 

Well, it wasn’t like Gold had to come to save him. Gold had already saved Silver enough with how things currently were. Silver was finally starting to feel like his own person again, rather than the useless excuse for a person who did nothing but disappoint his father and cause the premature death of his mother. Silver was feeling more and more confident with his life, which terrified him because the happier he seemed when he got home, the worse his father was going to be to him to “put him back in his place.”

He didn’t want to revert to being angry, scared, and not letting anyone see the real him. He wanted to be Silver, he didn’t just want to be someone who fought people and supposedly relished in their pain. He didn’t actually do that part, despite what people claimed. It was rather disconcerting that people believed that, honestly. He didn’t want people to believe that he was some kind of freak who genuinely enjoyed hurting people. He knew first hand that you should be careful with people, and even though he rarely acted on that knowledge, being with Gold was making it easier and easier for him to be the real him. 

But who was the real him? Silver didn’t even really know that much. Sure, he knew that he was not someone who  _ wanted _ to fight. He knew that he was probably not the things his father said he was. He knew he was someone who believed that he was those things, despite the good that Gold told him that he saw. He knew he was someone who was, for some reason, willing to be friends with a complete idiot. He knew he was someone who was terrible at being himself. Those things did  _ not _ add up to a complete person. Those things didn’t add up to make a “real” Silver. So if those were the only things that he knew that he was, then how could he know what the real him was? There was no real him if the parts couldn’t add up to be a whole. 

Silver figured that he was just missing parts of himself though. After all, Gold seemed to think he was a genuinely good person. Gold saw more than just broken parts of a shattered soul. Gold saw the whole that Silver couldn’t see, and Silver strived to be that whole that Gold claimed was still there. Not broken, he had claimed, just a little damaged. That was the person that Silver wanted to be. 

As Silver boarded the bus to what he kept thinking of as the death of all his progress as a person, he realized that no matter what his father did to him, he couldn’t take away the friendship that Gold and Silver had been cultivating. His father could physically beat him down. His father could yell at him, tell him all the things that were wrong with him. His father could try to destroy any semblance of happiness from Silver’s life. His father could  _ try _ . Silver would have a trump card that he never had before though - he had a reason to be strong. He had a reason to be happy, and he wasn’t planning on losing that for anything. 


End file.
